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Yuletide Letter 2023
I am requesting Siren: Survive the Island (TV) RPF, ONF (Band), Don't Stop - Ateez (Music Video), Sweet - The Boyz (Music Video), Dark Rise Series - C. S. Pacat
Dear Yuletide Writer,
Thank you so much for offering one of these fandoms! I'm excited about all of them and can't wait to see what you choose. If we don't know each other, I am tullycat on ao3. The following are some prompts I've included for inspiration, but don't feel restricted into following any of these too closely. If my prompt sends you down a related-but-separate path, or if you really have a vision for a fandom, I am interested to see where your plot bunnies take you!
Likes:
My preferences lean towards shippy, but I would be happy to receive a gen/friendship fic. Either way, I love found family/friendships that are just as important romantic relationships! I love the relationships between everyone in these fandoms.
Relationship wise, I love rare pairs, side pairs, and polyam. Pining, flirting/teasing/bickering like a married couple, characters enjoying each other's presence are all good. I do like loyalty kink and soulmates, especially soulmates that choose to be together.
Story wise, I am interested in worldbuilding, trope inversions, unexplored perspectives, trying something new/interesting with structure and form, and generally trying something new.
Plot wise, I like conflicts that are more complicated than simple miscommunication, plotty romances where the romance is the B plot and the get-together is not the main conflict, light angst, happy or hopeful endings, seeing how characters grow together, and lean more towards plot with/without porn than pwp.
Also, I love 'and there was only one bed' trope. I gobble it up every single time. :)
DNW:
- Non-canon typical violence, graphic depictions of violence, amputation, dubcon, noncon, permanent death of main/nominated characters, underage (<19) sexual content, characters that have been aged younger than their current ages, rule 63, AUs (unless I have specifically requested it for that fandom)
Siren: Survive the Island (TV) RPF
Kim Eun-byul (Siren), Jung Min-seon (Siren), Kim Seong-yeon (Siren)
My gift must feature one or more of my chosen character tags (giver's choice)
I don't think many people have watched Siren, so if we matched on something else, let me try to entice you to write this fandom! Here is my promo post if you want to learn more. Or if you want some visual intrigue, here's Eunbyul's (team athlete) insta.
One of the things I enjoy about this canon for yuletide is that the show gives us this really blank canvas that we can paint upon. We really only get glimpses of each individual person, so you can make up pretty much all the characterization and it will not be OOC. I am interested in any story you can make from this show and I'm open to gen or femslash. Some of the relationships that intrigued me the most were:
Gen: my impression was that most of the women didn't know each other before the show, so a fic focusing on how these friendships form during the show would be nice. The show does create a narrative for the winning team, but also has to spend time showing every team, so I think just narrowing the perspective to first/third-person limited and adding a personal narrative would be interesting for any of the contestants.
Femslash: again, veryyyyy open to femslash here. Feeling yourself having a crush and knowing it's being filmed for TV; maybe one or more of them has a queer awakening; maybe they sneak off into the showers because that's the only place they can be without cameras. I do think some of these women are married to men irl so I'm totally fine if you just pretend the partners don't exist, or have the fic take place after the show with one of the women realizing she's queer and wants to be with someone from the show instead of her partner.
I think playing with the setting would be interesting too. I'm also a huge Survivor fan, so I think it would be cool to take these teams/characters and put them in a similar kind of AU, either adding more complex strategy like Survivor has, or raising the stakes to make it an actual survival show like Squid Game/Battle Royale. Or if you want to focus on the reality aspect of the show, or eliminate the reality/filming aspect and create some other reason for them to be on the island and battling. If you want to write something not focused on a particular character and instead do world building with the set up or with the reality aspect of it, that would be cool too!
ONF (Band)
Mizuguchi Yuto | U (ONF Band)
My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags (if 0: any from tag set)
Yuto is incredibly talented and hardworking. There are some maknaes who love being doted on and some who would rather everyone forget they're the maknae, and Yuto falls into the second category. To me, that makes a great relationship with his hyungs, who are dying to smother Yuto with love that he must reluctantly accept (Seungjun pouting that Yuto wouldn't eat the Oreo he held out to Yuto! The flood of birthday posts on Yuto's birthday! The hyungs all offering to bring Yuto home to their families for the holidays when he couldn't go home to Japan!). I also love how this dynamic has intensified after the hyungs returned from enlistment: they all want to live in a dorm with Yuto, they brag to each other if Yuto makes them food or goes on a date with them, they fight over who is Yuto’s favorite, Changyun follows him on bubble.
They are also so proud of him for holding down the fort while they were gone: “when wyatt wrote the rap "thank you for u for filling in our absence" [for be here now] it was suggested to be changed but wyatt said he can't change it. in the end, "thank you for u" was recorded with all of the hyungs' voices.” Suffice it to say, I am happy with Yuto being shipped with any of his hyungs if this dynamic speaks to you for a particular hyung!
Some prompts you could use:
Don't Stop - Ateez (Music Video)
My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags (if 0: any from tag set)
I have to be honest, I understand very little of the overall Ateez lore. So if you want to write this music video within the larger lore, go for it, but I’m also 100% happy for this music video to stand alone.
I didn’t choose a character because I think they’re all doing something interesting and I would be happy to read a fic centered on any/all of them!
I could see this being a multi layer heist, perhaps to steal the destiny ship for the first time, or to reclaim what was stolen from them previously. Maybe there’s magic involved in this universe, and they have to collect all the pieces (spyglass, deeds to the ship, whatever Mingi picked up) to be able to fly the ship elsewhere. If you're into Six of Crows, it does give me that vibe!
I love rare pairs, but I’d be happy with whatever ship or side ships speak to you in this video.
Sweet - The Boyz (Music Video)
Sangyeon's Character (Sweet Music Video), Juyeon's Character (Sweet Music Video), New's Character (Sweet Music Video), Sunwoo's Character (Sweet Music Video)
My gift must feature one or more of my chosen character tags (giver's choice)
This video is SO fun. Vampires shooting a commercial for their happy vampire village! It's up to you if you want to make this video a continuation of Drink It, or make it a stand-alone video. There could be so many reasons why they're shooting a commercial - maybe the vampire coven had a change of heart and they really do want to be accepted into society, maybe they got a violation from the local government and have to (pretend to) clean up their act, maybe they are trying to attract humans in as consenting blood bags, maybe they are pretending to be good for other, nefarious purposes! There are definitely sinister undertones throughout the video, which I think could be played up for comedic purposes. I do think the video is fairly bright, so I would love the the tone of the fic to keep some of that lightness.
Sunwoo and Chanhee really are pulling their weight in the marketing of this village - maybe they are human interns that were hired by this vampire coven to help them market their village? (They need Gen Z to help them understand social media!) Maybe Sangyeon is a human intern and they tease him about being the oldest even if they're 1000+ years old lol. If the marketing campaign is about drawing in consenting human blood donors, perhaps one of the interns offers up themselves...gotta test out the product they're endorsing! (My fandom specific like here is when vampire biting humans makes them horny.) Or maybe all of the Boyz are vampires and Sangyeon is their leader.
Eric doesn't appear in the video, but I would love to see him added in too if you feel inclined! Maybe he's the investigative reporter checking out the village, maybe he's the newest vampire of the coven and ran away in some teen-vamp angst because he want to live among the humans and the coven is trying to draw him back.
I listed the four characters that I think have the biggest role in the video or are my favorites of the group, so choose whichever one speaks most to you! I'm happy with ships among these four, or you're welcome to add in any TBZ characters not listed here. Of these four, my favorite ships would be Sangyeon/Juyeon and Chanhee/Sunwoo.
Dark Rise Series - C. S. Pacat
Will Kempen (Dark Rise), James St. Clair (Dark Rise)
My gift must feature one or more of my chosen character tags (giver's choice)
I really love how this book plays with identity and the role of fate and choice. If Will was raised to be good, does that win over him being the Dark King? If James has done terrible things in his past, can he still find the redemption he thinks he's getting in Will? I think this applies to both Will and James, so that's why I'm ok with only receiving one of these characters if you want to write a character study.
If you want to include both of them, I definitely ship them and I love the contrast they provide to each other, while also being so similar (all those quotes about Will instantly being drawn to James... Mhm). James thinking Will is good and can make James a better person vs Will thinking he's corrupted and will pull them both down if he lets himself want James.... incredibly delicious to me. I do feel like the vibe for this ship is "I can make him better"/"Well I can make him worse" if you want to lean into that (I believe when I finished the book my words were "I want James and Will to fuck each other uppppp"). Will definitely feels guilty and conflicted about James wanting to follow him and lying about his identity, so this is a fandom specific exception to my dubcon DNW if the fic goes down that path (still no non-con please!) I'm also realizing Will is ~17, so this is another fandom specific exception to my DNW: I'm okay with sexual content for these characters! (Though I will probably still pretend they're 18 haha).
I know that book 2 coming out during the writing period complicates when in the storyline to write a fic. If you want to include book 2 in the plot, I plan to read it before yuletide reveals. However I'm also happy if you ignore it completely. Some specific prompts for book 1:
Dear Yuletide Writer,
Thank you so much for offering one of these fandoms! I'm excited about all of them and can't wait to see what you choose. If we don't know each other, I am tullycat on ao3. The following are some prompts I've included for inspiration, but don't feel restricted into following any of these too closely. If my prompt sends you down a related-but-separate path, or if you really have a vision for a fandom, I am interested to see where your plot bunnies take you!
Likes:
My preferences lean towards shippy, but I would be happy to receive a gen/friendship fic. Either way, I love found family/friendships that are just as important romantic relationships! I love the relationships between everyone in these fandoms.
Relationship wise, I love rare pairs, side pairs, and polyam. Pining, flirting/teasing/bickering like a married couple, characters enjoying each other's presence are all good. I do like loyalty kink and soulmates, especially soulmates that choose to be together.
Story wise, I am interested in worldbuilding, trope inversions, unexplored perspectives, trying something new/interesting with structure and form, and generally trying something new.
Plot wise, I like conflicts that are more complicated than simple miscommunication, plotty romances where the romance is the B plot and the get-together is not the main conflict, light angst, happy or hopeful endings, seeing how characters grow together, and lean more towards plot with/without porn than pwp.
Also, I love 'and there was only one bed' trope. I gobble it up every single time. :)
DNW:
- Non-canon typical violence, graphic depictions of violence, amputation, dubcon, noncon, permanent death of main/nominated characters, underage (<19) sexual content, characters that have been aged younger than their current ages, rule 63, AUs (unless I have specifically requested it for that fandom)
Siren: Survive the Island (TV) RPF
Kim Eun-byul (Siren), Jung Min-seon (Siren), Kim Seong-yeon (Siren)
My gift must feature one or more of my chosen character tags (giver's choice)
I don't think many people have watched Siren, so if we matched on something else, let me try to entice you to write this fandom! Here is my promo post if you want to learn more. Or if you want some visual intrigue, here's Eunbyul's (team athlete) insta.
One of the things I enjoy about this canon for yuletide is that the show gives us this really blank canvas that we can paint upon. We really only get glimpses of each individual person, so you can make up pretty much all the characterization and it will not be OOC. I am interested in any story you can make from this show and I'm open to gen or femslash. Some of the relationships that intrigued me the most were:
- Eunbyul with anyone on team athlete (or firefighter if that strikes your fancy)
- Seongyeon with Eunbyul or Heejeong (or Minseon on firefighter if you want butch 4 butch. EDIT: I swear I'll stop editing my letter after this but Seongyeon talked about bed sharing with Minseon in this interview and blushed talking about their bodies touching.........)
- Minseon flirts with either Hyeonji or Jihye, not sure which because they didn't get much screentime, so if you just want to pick one of those two and give her all the flirting that's fine with me! Or Minseon with Hyeonah (leader!) or again Seongyeon on team athlete
Gen: my impression was that most of the women didn't know each other before the show, so a fic focusing on how these friendships form during the show would be nice. The show does create a narrative for the winning team, but also has to spend time showing every team, so I think just narrowing the perspective to first/third-person limited and adding a personal narrative would be interesting for any of the contestants.
Femslash: again, veryyyyy open to femslash here. Feeling yourself having a crush and knowing it's being filmed for TV; maybe one or more of them has a queer awakening; maybe they sneak off into the showers because that's the only place they can be without cameras. I do think some of these women are married to men irl so I'm totally fine if you just pretend the partners don't exist, or have the fic take place after the show with one of the women realizing she's queer and wants to be with someone from the show instead of her partner.
I think playing with the setting would be interesting too. I'm also a huge Survivor fan, so I think it would be cool to take these teams/characters and put them in a similar kind of AU, either adding more complex strategy like Survivor has, or raising the stakes to make it an actual survival show like Squid Game/Battle Royale. Or if you want to focus on the reality aspect of the show, or eliminate the reality/filming aspect and create some other reason for them to be on the island and battling. If you want to write something not focused on a particular character and instead do world building with the set up or with the reality aspect of it, that would be cool too!
ONF (Band)
Mizuguchi Yuto | U (ONF Band)
My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags (if 0: any from tag set)
Yuto is incredibly talented and hardworking. There are some maknaes who love being doted on and some who would rather everyone forget they're the maknae, and Yuto falls into the second category. To me, that makes a great relationship with his hyungs, who are dying to smother Yuto with love that he must reluctantly accept (Seungjun pouting that Yuto wouldn't eat the Oreo he held out to Yuto! The flood of birthday posts on Yuto's birthday! The hyungs all offering to bring Yuto home to their families for the holidays when he couldn't go home to Japan!). I also love how this dynamic has intensified after the hyungs returned from enlistment: they all want to live in a dorm with Yuto, they brag to each other if Yuto makes them food or goes on a date with them, they fight over who is Yuto’s favorite, Changyun follows him on bubble.
They are also so proud of him for holding down the fort while they were gone: “when wyatt wrote the rap "thank you for u for filling in our absence" [for be here now] it was suggested to be changed but wyatt said he can't change it. in the end, "thank you for u" was recorded with all of the hyungs' voices.” Suffice it to say, I am happy with Yuto being shipped with any of his hyungs if this dynamic speaks to you for a particular hyung!
Some prompts you could use:
- I especially love Yuto's relationship with Seungjun, his OFF team leader. Yuto loves to teasingly withhold affection from Seungjun. Yuto also finds it hilarious to say that Hyojin is his favorite hyung, and then laughs when Seungjun gets huffy about it. Maybe Yuto is telling the truth and Hyojin is his favorite, maybe he just wants to tease Seungjun...maybe they solve it with ot3.
- 4/5 hyungs say Yuto is their favorite but Yuto chose Jaeyoung!!
- I think Changyun has been the most vocal about loving Yuto since they all returned from enlistment so any fic with them after Changyun returned would be great
- Speaking of enlistment, feel free to dive into that period. Yuto was briefly on SMF, he went to watch the other 5 members perform in the military band while he could not (D:), and he’s been doing appearances on radios and stuff. Maybe you want to ship him with a non-ONF during that time??
- Their reality show Dive Into ONF had lots of bed sharing - feel free to use those pairings as ship inspo. Yuto was SO excited about being able to choose a bedroom which I thought was so cute. Maybe something about how he felt rooming with Jaeyoung? An old crush finally being acted on?
- They've also done a lot of filming - I think it would be very cool to dig into any moments from Mixnine, Road to Kingdom, or behind the scenes moments from filming the Can I Step In web drama.
- If you want to write for ONF as a five minute fandom, they have an entire cinematic universe in their music videos. I even made a primer with timestamps! I would be thrilled to get a fic that dives into any of the world building in one/a couple/all of their music videos! (Time travel? Space? Why are they so into trains?!)
Don't Stop - Ateez (Music Video)
My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags (if 0: any from tag set)
I have to be honest, I understand very little of the overall Ateez lore. So if you want to write this music video within the larger lore, go for it, but I’m also 100% happy for this music video to stand alone.
I didn’t choose a character because I think they’re all doing something interesting and I would be happy to read a fic centered on any/all of them!
- Why was Mingi in a car separate from the rest of them and how did he find his way back?
- Why is Hongjoong also separate and angsting over a model ship?
- Who are Wooyoung and San playing this high stakes poker game against? Are they a practiced card shark pair, or was this the one situation they were desperate enough to cheat to win?
- The other four clearly know they are looking for something, but don’t know exactly where - how did they know to look in the pawn shop first place? Why are they pros at cracking open safes?
- The 1 second look Hongjoong gives Seonghwa at the end when they’re reunited is SO charged. What is he thinking in that moment????
I could see this being a multi layer heist, perhaps to steal the destiny ship for the first time, or to reclaim what was stolen from them previously. Maybe there’s magic involved in this universe, and they have to collect all the pieces (spyglass, deeds to the ship, whatever Mingi picked up) to be able to fly the ship elsewhere. If you're into Six of Crows, it does give me that vibe!
I love rare pairs, but I’d be happy with whatever ship or side ships speak to you in this video.
Sweet - The Boyz (Music Video)
Sangyeon's Character (Sweet Music Video), Juyeon's Character (Sweet Music Video), New's Character (Sweet Music Video), Sunwoo's Character (Sweet Music Video)
My gift must feature one or more of my chosen character tags (giver's choice)
This video is SO fun. Vampires shooting a commercial for their happy vampire village! It's up to you if you want to make this video a continuation of Drink It, or make it a stand-alone video. There could be so many reasons why they're shooting a commercial - maybe the vampire coven had a change of heart and they really do want to be accepted into society, maybe they got a violation from the local government and have to (pretend to) clean up their act, maybe they are trying to attract humans in as consenting blood bags, maybe they are pretending to be good for other, nefarious purposes! There are definitely sinister undertones throughout the video, which I think could be played up for comedic purposes. I do think the video is fairly bright, so I would love the the tone of the fic to keep some of that lightness.
Sunwoo and Chanhee really are pulling their weight in the marketing of this village - maybe they are human interns that were hired by this vampire coven to help them market their village? (They need Gen Z to help them understand social media!) Maybe Sangyeon is a human intern and they tease him about being the oldest even if they're 1000+ years old lol. If the marketing campaign is about drawing in consenting human blood donors, perhaps one of the interns offers up themselves...gotta test out the product they're endorsing! (My fandom specific like here is when vampire biting humans makes them horny.) Or maybe all of the Boyz are vampires and Sangyeon is their leader.
Eric doesn't appear in the video, but I would love to see him added in too if you feel inclined! Maybe he's the investigative reporter checking out the village, maybe he's the newest vampire of the coven and ran away in some teen-vamp angst because he want to live among the humans and the coven is trying to draw him back.
I listed the four characters that I think have the biggest role in the video or are my favorites of the group, so choose whichever one speaks most to you! I'm happy with ships among these four, or you're welcome to add in any TBZ characters not listed here. Of these four, my favorite ships would be Sangyeon/Juyeon and Chanhee/Sunwoo.
Dark Rise Series - C. S. Pacat
Will Kempen (Dark Rise), James St. Clair (Dark Rise)
My gift must feature one or more of my chosen character tags (giver's choice)
I really love how this book plays with identity and the role of fate and choice. If Will was raised to be good, does that win over him being the Dark King? If James has done terrible things in his past, can he still find the redemption he thinks he's getting in Will? I think this applies to both Will and James, so that's why I'm ok with only receiving one of these characters if you want to write a character study.
If you want to include both of them, I definitely ship them and I love the contrast they provide to each other, while also being so similar (all those quotes about Will instantly being drawn to James... Mhm). James thinking Will is good and can make James a better person vs Will thinking he's corrupted and will pull them both down if he lets himself want James.... incredibly delicious to me. I do feel like the vibe for this ship is "I can make him better"/"Well I can make him worse" if you want to lean into that (I believe when I finished the book my words were "I want James and Will to fuck each other uppppp"). Will definitely feels guilty and conflicted about James wanting to follow him and lying about his identity, so this is a fandom specific exception to my dubcon DNW if the fic goes down that path (still no non-con please!) I'm also realizing Will is ~17, so this is another fandom specific exception to my DNW: I'm okay with sexual content for these characters! (Though I will probably still pretend they're 18 haha).
I know that book 2 coming out during the writing period complicates when in the storyline to write a fic. If you want to include book 2 in the plot, I plan to read it before yuletide reveals. However I'm also happy if you ignore it completely. Some specific prompts for book 1:
- Aspects of book 1 from James' perspective
- What happens after the book ends (Pacat did include a teaser chapter on Twitter which you are free to include or ignore)
- Maybe incorporating something about their previous lives or writing about James with the Dark King in the past?
- There is a lot of talk of the Dark King being with both the Lady and James, so maybe Katherine lives and the three of them get together, or perhaps Violet fulfills the role of the Lady in their reborn selves and they have a threesome
- I do also think the concept shieldmates is interesting - maybe Will and James become a type of shieldmate for each other because they're both afraid of going down the path of darkness.
- Also an AU where they actually were raised as each other's shieldmate would be super cool. (The chastity clause is ripe for decades-long pining and sexual tension.)