Dear Yuletide Writer,

Hi! I hope you have a lot of fun with Yuletide this year and don't stress out too much about my gift! Feel free to ignore all of my optional details and/or what I write here, if you've got an idea or a muse or find them too restrictive, ignore me and run with your idea(s). I'm probably going to love whatever you write to pieces and rec it everywhere I can.

Seriously. Given the fandoms and characters in question we probably have pretty similar taste in general so run with the plot bunny that bites and have fun with it and I'm sure I'll be really happy with my gift.



I'm one of those obnoxious people who actually likes postmodernism and meta in their fic. Fandom is my fandom, etc etc etc. I like fic that plays around with that, knowingly invoking tropes, leaning on/breaking the fourth wall, meta commentary on canon OR fandom, stories about stories, unreliable narrators. I like tropes in general; come up with a fic cliche and really run with it or find a way to twist it and bring it back to something like canon and I'll probably proclaim my love everywhere.

I tend to prefer plot or slice of life for Yuletide over shippy fic but I have no objections to getting together fic if you've got a fun idea or a great character voice. I also adore au fics which work in canon relationships and nods, crossovers and fusions, fic with queer characters and themes, feminist themes, crackfic, humor, banter, worldbuilding, absurd situations, wacky hijinks, and shenanigans which ensue.

My bulletproof narrative kinks are variations on chosen/found family, characters with long histories together and complex relationships (platonic and/or romantic), and ensemble/group/team dynamics.



Character bashing, slut shaming and hating on/ignoring female characters isn't cool, but also probably won't be a problem, given my requests and how we matched up. I'm not a fan of misogyny or sexism, but since I requested superhero comics and Arrow it very well might come up as a plot or characterization point. That's okay! Just think about it and try to keep it in line with canon. Nuance is key there.

If you're writing porny fic (totally cool, but also not necessary), I don't do incest, noncon/dubcon, Omega verses and I'm a little picky about my kink, less 50 Shades of Grey and more safe, sane and consensual? Beyond that, I'm pretty open minded and if it makes sense for the story/characters, awesome.

I don't like domestic curtain-y fic for the sake of domestic fluff, but negotiating crazy superheroics and a personal life? Awesome! The only other things I'm not a fan of and can think of are: serious angst without some hope or happiness at the end, and non-canon character death (unless the story is about their ghost adventures or something). I also have a MASSIVE embarrassment/humiliation squick to the point I can't always get through a lot of mainstream comedies without cringing, so please be mindful of that if you're writing humor.



I adore Steph and she's the character I most want fic about but I would be really happy with fic centered on Cass, Babs or Wendy as long as Steph shows up. I love the relationships among team Batgirl and I'd really like to see more with that. Legacy/legacy heroes are some of my favorite things in comics and something I always like to see explored. I'd prefer plot over character study, but I'm pretty easy about how I define plot. I love fandom tropes and AUs almost as much as I love Steph so you really could write a Bat-lady centric cliche au of your choice and I'll love it as much as I would a canon-compliant casefic or futurefic where the reboot didn't happen.

Steph's Batgirl run was my introduction to DC and that's probably still my favorite period for the Batfam collectively. I love Steph an unreasonable amount as a character but I also really love the tone of her book. It's a fantastic mix of smart humor and action and that's something I'd love to see more of in fic. As I mentioned, I really like legacy heroes and how they navigate that history and being their own hero and there's so much you could do with that theme and anyone on Team Batgirl.

I really wish canon had handled the transition from Cass to Steph better so if you'd like to play with that and give Cass a good reason for passing on the mantle that'd be great! Cass and Steph's friendship is AMAZING and isn't explored enough in fic and I'd be really happy to see Batgirl!Cass and Spoiler!Steph or the two of them as Batgirl and Robin or Black Bat and Batgirl's adventures (ideally with Wendy and/or Babs on comms). I definitely ship Steph/Cass and Steph/Wendy and friends to lovers/not realizing they're dating are tropes I love way more than I should. Really, I'd ship any combination of these ladies and I ship Batgirls with Robins in every combination (including moresomes) you can think of. So if you're a shippy sort of author you have a LOT of options I'd be really happy with. And if you're not a shippy author, I really love plotty genfic. A lot. So please, send them on an adventure of some sort! Or have Wendy and Steph hanging out eating waffles and complaining about their intro to forensics class! I really like fic about superheroes doing normal stuff. Or what normal looks like in a world with superheroes and villains. If you run with one of the possible future events from Steph's Black Mercy dream I will probably love you forever and ever.

Also? Feel free to cross Batgirl characters with people from the rest of the Batbooks (or even the Teen Titans if you want to write about the Batgirl of your choice working with them on something or someone visiting Wendy). Batgirls and teamups go together almost as well as Steph and waffles.





Super early days YJ is kind of my favorite thing ever, so I'd love team fic set around then. Bart and Kon's friendship is a thing of joy so them just being ridiculous kids together would be awesome. I love Cassie and Cissie's friendship (and generally how great YJ-era Cassie was) so I'd love to see fic about that or it highlighted in team adventures (which could be anything from failing to cook dinner to saving the world). I'd really love to see some follow up on Cissie after retirement because Cissie's story arc is really interesting and so much could have been done with it.

I was/am late to the comics party in general but especially the DCU part of it. I'm still making my way through classic YJ but oh my god it's the BEST THING. So like I said, team fic? Please? More than any comics I've read YJ is perfect for the most absurd situation you can think of and I desperately want to read all about it. Tim wasn't eligible as a character but that doesn't have to mean no Tim in the story. If you don't want to include him that's totally cool with me but if you can't really write about Kon, Bart and/or Cassie without him definitely feel free to include him (and anyone else that didn't make it in/I didn't request as long as the fic is centered around or from the pov of someone I did request). But enough about Tim. Let's talk about how great 90s Kon is and he needs to be more fic. And let's talk about how adorable Cassie is in YJ, ridiculous wig and goggles and all. And how fantastic Bart is and he's under-utilized in fic and that's terrible. And Cissie and how she needs to be in so much more fic.

Cissie is fascinating to me because there's this insane amount of unrealized potential with her storyline? And if you're inclined to slightly darker fic, Cissie would be a fantastic character to write about and deconstruct and reconstruct the genre with. There's also the whole thing with the Arrowfam and how she could fit into that (or pointedly not pursue that) and I'd really like to see something about Cissie and Mia/Speedy. That's drifting away from Young Justice and might be darker or more complicated than you want to get into, so totally understandable if you don't want to touch that.

Mostly though? Team shenanigans. Please.





I love Kate's everything so a Kate-pov adventure would be fantastic from any point in her hero career. I also love Teddy's everything and would like anything from how he met Billy to complicated identity stuff to Teddy's pov/commentary on recent adventures. I also love America's everything and I like Eli a lot. My kingdom for fic about America and Eli meeting, especially if you can do something with the idea of legacy and how they'd be linked to Captain America in the media. And of course, team adventures would very much be welcome. I'm not picky about which incarnation of the team you write about and I love AUs, so feel free to change things up.

Right now the YA fic of my heart is probably some epic thing with a tight plot where the team saves the world and along the way it explores Billy and Teddy's relationship in more depth and does something with Teddy+fluid identity and how he's navigating all of that and meanwhile, Kate's being awesome and coming into her own as a leader and Eli comes back and there is at least one scene where Eli and America talk about being linked to Steve's whitebread legacy (even though America's a completely different legacy/power set, she goes around as Miss America with red white and blue and you know the media draws a connection) and there are shenanigans and Stuff Happens and also probably Kid Loki does something extra awful and somehow saves them.

That is not a fic you need to write. That is way too much fic for Yuletide. But some of those ideas? Please take them and run with them. As you're probably aware of by now, I really like plot, genfic, adventures and team dynamics. I liked the first YA team a lot, I like the current one a smidge more but I'd really like to see a YA superteam with pretty much everyone (or time-travel adventures). One of my favorite things about YA is that it's not a static team, they're all developing characters and the team dynamic can and does change as things happen; it feels more organic than a lot of teams do. So transition/change/becoming thematically work for me with this team and these characters. Maybe that means a road trip, maybe it's five times Kate saved various incarnations of the team, maybe it's Teddy going from a normalish kid to the kind of hero he wants to be, maybe it's fic about America finding home in people. Maybe it's an au where they're all normal kids in college and figuring out who they are. Who knows? Pick a character and tell me part of their story.





I'm a little behind on Hawkeye but you can't go wrong with the continuing adventures of Pizza Dog. Or Kate. Kate's my favorite Marvel lady and I love a lot of things about her. And right now especially, I'm loving that she's in two books and would really love to see more fic where she juggles her [mis]adventures with Clint and being on a team and figuring out how to do this hero thing now.

Kate is such a fantastic character and I can't really explain why I think she's so great, she just is. This might sound ridiculous, but in some ways she really reminds me archetypal characters like Tony Stark/Oliver Queen/Bruce Wayne? She's very much in the mold of the wealthy charismatic eccentric philanthropist who fights crime kinda for the hell of it but has a ton of depth to them? Except she's the modern day version of that and in many ways the opposite of such a classic character type. And that's really cool and I think something that could be explored in fic? Hawkeye's the place to do that, more than with Young Avengers because Hawkeye!Kate comes across as more grownup!Kate than Young Avengers!Kate and the tone of comic would work really well for something a little bit meta. Plus, Pizza Dog. Like I said, you can't go wrong with Kate and Pizza Dog adventures. Those adventures could totally be holding Clint's coffee hostage and mocking him. Or Kate juggling her Hawkeye thing and her Young Avengers things. Or a day in the life of Kate Bishop with all her sass.





I'm still early in season 1 with plans to catch up with season 2 in the next couple of weeks and I'm broadly familiar with the comics Arrowfam. Which means: go wild with AUs and speculation and crossing over canon and don't worry about spoilers. I love Thea to pieces and would really love to see more fic about her. Pre-canon is great, Thea and Ollie's relationship or Thea and her messed up family would be great, I will love you forever if you write something about Thea becoming a hero.

Arrow's 100% guilty pleasure tv, I watch it as much for how much of a trainwreck it is as for how curious I am about how they're going to interpret the comics. If we matched on Arrow and you're not watching it at least a little bit ironically and/or really love Thea trying to write fic for me in this will probably be frustrating and stressful? I don't watch Arrow ironically because that's a useless statement and not accurate at all but it's what comes to mind. Arrow is like really bad fanfic you're invested in because it has your absolute favorite whatever and you've however far in so you might as well finish it. I like it, but in a really strange way. What I do like unconditionally and without any weird exceptions is Thea Queen. Thea's a fantastic trainwreck of a person with so many issues and she's interestingly messed up because she has objective tragedy but she's also willfully making it worse? She's my favorite kind of broken because it can be mended and the cracks will just add interest. I also love her relationship with Ollie, when they're good it's a fantastic sibling relationship but hovering just out of sight are all of these very real issues and pain. And of course, Thea's following in his pre-shipwreck footsteps (except for how he was just a party boy and she's got some actual Issues fueling it) and Ollie's guilt over that is entertainingly angsty. I really want more stuff about their relationship and my kingdom for fic about Thea becoming Speedy.

Like I said, I'm still pretty early in season 1 but I know they bring in Roy Harper later. It's a completely different universe and Roy's backstory is obviously Very Different and his relationship with Ollie is Very Different so I'm not sure if they're actually going to make him Speedy or how that's going to happen (or if it has already, seriously, I'm still on like episode 10) but whatever. AU of an AU. Please feel free to run with Thea=superhero in some capacity. Make her Black Canary, make her Speedy, make her Arrowette, could she become Arsenal? Introduce her to Arrow!verse Mia/Cissie/Bonnie King, cross it over with Arrowverse versions of other DC heroes and make Thea Robin. Whatever.

Please just write about Thea and her many issues and/or relationship with Ollie and the rest of her family and/or Being A Hero and please feel free to add in comics canon you're familiar with. Thea's a really interesting character is a universe that's...not always coherent. Have fun with it.