Yuletide letter

[rthstewart]

So, against all sense and judgment, I've signed up for Yuletide.

First, thanks so much! I really appreciate you writing for me and I hope that you find something that inspires or interests you. Despite the character-centric match up, the fact is, I’m pretty agnostic as to characters. Whatever we've been matched on, don't worry because I like just about anything and what I don't like has to do with tone and characterization, not particular characters.

I've opted in for treats and gifts, yes, please and thank you!

Options are optional - What I love (totally optional):

• UST; witty banter and snark; politics, finance, history or military strategy; World War 2; worldbuilding; gap-filling; culture clash; natural history, healthy, normal, romantic relationship between consenting adults; someone being extraordinarily clever and getting out of a jam; anything sly, wry, and silly; rapid fire dialogue; a delightful sense of the absurd; madcap adventures
• A satisfying ending, delightful characterization, and to laugh at least once
• Pagan and/or mythological influences;
• I prefer humor over angst
• Cross-overs, AUs, and Fusion Fics! (You can look at my work to see my interests and xovers)
• Big monsters like sentient dragons, zords, dinosaurs, kaiju, transformers
• I’m an old lady liberal, so if you go political, which is totally cool and I really enjoy, please lean hard left.
• I generally prefer the ladies and/or POCs over the guys
• Outside perspective/pov -- a well written OC observing a canon character where we know more than they do

I prefer f/m and f/f over m/m if you go romantic.

Character death is harder -- I don't have a problem at all with loved ones long gone, for example Temeraire grieving for past riders.

DNW: it's a short list but pretty strongly held: excessive angst, gore or violence; body horror, any dub-con whatsoever. I have a strong preference for humor over angst and romance/sex rather than violence.


Indiana Jones

Anything with Marion and/or Indy. I have more thoughts on Marion, but have fun filling the enormous gaps for either of them. You could give Marion some backstory; where did she live? How did she end up in Mongolia? What did she do after she and Indy split? What happened after her father died? Invent a gal pal with some fem-slashy goodness on the side. She accidentally discovers Themyscira and learns a zillion languages. She becomes a Nazi hunter. She works with Peggy Carter. Handwave away Mutt if you need to.

For Indy and/or Marion, a story with smelly camels and donkeys, cursed tombs, loyal dogs, and finding lost cities and new species, and being good friends with the locals, drinking lots of gin and quinine to ward off malaria. Indy was in the OSS, so maybe Marion was too. Or in the SOE. What was she doing in the War? Was she a spy -- she'd be a great spy! Maybe they were spies together? I did a story where Indy was a Monuments Man at the end of the War -- you could build on that or give a role to Marion in scouring Europe for dangerous Nazi artifacts. Bonus for punching Nazis.

Or, maybe Marion and Indy are both eccentric professors and so you do an outside pov of their teaching assistants or administrators who are stuck covering for them all the time. Maybe Marion teaches the next class of lady adventurers. Most of all, have fun filling in the big gaps!

Jurassic Park

"Dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherits the earth."
"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."
“We can discuss sexism in survival situations when I get back.”
I selected any character because I'm fine with any of the characters because what I most want is any of those characters dealing with Dinosaurs. Or Kaiju. Or Dragons. More dinosaurs. Make them sentient. Do a fusion with Pern or Temeraire or Pacific Rim or Dinotopia. I love Ellie Sattler so great if you can include her, if you are so inclined. You could have Alan and Ellie kicking creationists from one end of the geological timeline to the next.  Or Ian being reluctantly coerced into another dino adventure -- he is SO over it.  Or Tim and Lex as adults Dealing With Dinosaurs. A key message of Michael Crichton's work is -- corporations and their lawyers are short sighted money grubbers.  So feel free to play with that.

Temeraire

Even Temeraire himself is optional, so long as there are dragons. OCs are terrific here, too! Dragons, dragons, dragons. Dragon mythology. Famous dragons in history. Dragons and AU history, dragons and wars, dragon politicians post League of Dragons, dragons and xovers, dragons and fusion fics.  Or Temeraire at the end of the story -- what does English society and the world look like with dragons as full participants? What do dragons think of Brexit?  Donald Trump? The current 2022 crisis?

Temeraire also lends itself well to culture clash, characters, often out of time and place, sharing a different, more inclusive view, and often gently or more aggressively schooling (and possibly enlightening) those around them. I love Temeraire’s radical point of view (why can’t dragons vote?).

Rogue Squad/X Wing books
I'm here for the banter and high jinks and the Star Wars movie we didn't get.  Yub, yub commander.  I have a special fondness for Wedge, Talon Karrde and Booster, but really just anybody in those books, so long as it's the typical mess they get into and have to get out of on the basis of just being too damned clever and great fliers.  I noted in the sign up that in Kenobi we learn that a Force sensitive child named Corran Horn ends up being smuggled with his mother onto the Jedi Path/refugee line to avoid Sith inquisitors.  It's a blink and you miss it moment.  (Mike Stackpole was thrilled).  So if you are interested in developing that, go for it. Feel free to add my beloved Mara Jade.  Add Luke, Leia, and/or Han if you want.  Or Chewbacca. 
1000 words of the Rogues drinking too much and getting thrown out of a bar is great by me.  Or they have to defend their funding to the Coruscant Senate and, like, put on a suit and someone is trying to school them in how not to piss off a Senator with subpoena power and control of the appropriations. 

Thank you again and drop an anon comment if you have questions.