Dear Yuletide Author

[bodlon]

Dear Mysterious Yuletide Person,

So I have never done Yuletide before. Last year was the year I figured out what it was, and that it's awesome. Don't be alarmed by my sort of blank-but-affable demeanor. I'm still trying to figure out which end of this thing I'm supposed to be holding.

You, however, are already seventy flavors of badass. I mean, Yuletide is about obscurity to some extent, and to my mind the things I asked for aren't obscure per se, but I expect they get shortish-shrift by fandom on account of being sort of common Western canon literature. I'm not sure if wanting to play with them is a recessive trait or not, but perhaps working on them in this context is. So! High fives to you!

What I Like
- queer themes handled gracefully
- wit, wordplay, and language I want to roll around in my mouth
- the senses
- playful exploration of the prompt
- romance/erotica that serves the characters and the story
- darkness or lightness which serves the characters and the story
- pie*

* Just in general. It doesn't actually have to be in the story or anything.

What I Don't Like
- tired queer stereotypes/narratives
- dumb/weird/offensive mistakes arising from lack of experience/knowledge
- bizarrely out of character choices (e.g. fluffy Harker/Dracula)
- romance/erotica in conflict with story or characterization
- holiday-oriented stories
- gratuitous cruelty, especially to animals

I think Twelfth Night lends itself well to happy endings, A Midsummer Night's Dream lends itself well to longing and strangeness and things which cannot be, and Dracula lends itself to some heavy, crazy darkness, but (with the possible exception of things like Dracula/Harker curtainfic) am ridiculously flexible and open to being delighted by the unexpected.

Thanks again, Yuletide Author. You're fabulous.