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Hello, Writer!
You have signed up for the 3_Ships gift exchange this year, and that is awesome. For all I know, you've known me for nine years and six fandoms and you have the story two-thirds finished in your head already...but there's a vastly greater chance that you don't have a clue who I am or what I might want in a story, so hopefully if that's the case this letter will make you feel slightly less lost.
I like all your basic, standard flavors -- humor, hot hot heat, angst, high romance, schmoop. I like AUs very much, both the type that are "what if X happened instead of Z, then what?" and the type where they're all pirates or robots or living out the plot of Casablanca. A happy ending is always nice, but I also love old-school tragedy. I'm not really into PWPs -- which doesn't mean that the story shouldn't be wall-to-wall sex (fine!), just that there should be some kind of character component to it, working out emotional conflict or trying to establish boundaries in a relationship or even external pressures (aliens who make them do it? Never gets old, somehow!) I like a certain amount of kink, but more along the lines of little power plays and someone being totally at their partners' disposal and something pretty and red tying up someone's wrists -- less along the lines of elaborate, negotiated BDSM scenarios. I also *love* sex scenes and/or relationships that are against one or more party's better judgment (that whole, "no, no, we can't! we shouldn't!" thing) and people being teased out of their minds. Those are my kinks in a nutshell -- though also, I should say, I wouldn't be disappointed in a good story with no explicit sex at all. I can always imagine the sex (really, I can!), but the more important thing is to see where another writer (that's you!) can take these characters that I never would've thought of.
For Buffy writers:
This is the only request I made where I was pretty serious about the "requested story elements," because I feel like prior to s8 (or maybe s7...), Xander was really too insecure and emotionally unready for a relationship like this to be a good idea. He's always looked up to both Willow and Buffy, and the s8 comics are really the first time I get the sense with him that he really believes he can bring something to them, too, rather than just hoping they have pity on him. So while I'm not asking for a story that's specifically about any of the s8 plot arcs, I do really want one that isn't set before that. Of course, if you do an AU, this may not apply, but in that case, the spirit of the request is: no young, insecure Xander. The other thing I find interesting about s8 is that Willow has been off on her own for a while, which is something that hasn't really been true of either Buffy or Xander; they've moved from having deep roots in Sunnydale to setting up deep roots in Scotland, they're nesters in some way, I think -- Xander kind of runs the household there (witty housewife with an eyepatch! how cool is that?) and Buffy seems a little mother-hennish about her students, but Willow has kind of been off on her own, taking care of herself. So there's maybe some food for thought there. If you choose to deal with backstory and previous relationships, know that I wildly adore Angel, Cordelia, Oz, and Tara, but have never really been that fond of Spike, Anya, or Kennedy. Which doesn't mean you can't bring up all or none of those characters, because they are canon and they do matter -- it's just something to know. (I have no opinion in either direction about Riley.)
For Friday Night Lights writers:
I know this is a bit of a longshot request, because so few people in fandom apparently watch FNL, but honestly, this pairing is so easy that even canon is doing it! If you want to jump right in around "Let's Get It On" and just run with the ball (er...that's a football metaphor, isn't it?), then go for it! But also, you could go pre-series, back when they were all more naively adoring of each other, or you could go for futurefic and let them sort everything out down the road. Really, there's no way to go wrong with this one. My one really specific thing to say is that Lyla is damn near my favorite character on FNL (okay, maybe Saracen is my *favorite* favorite...), and so for God's sake, whatever you do, try to avoid any hint of Lyla-abuse. THIS INCLUDES the story where she's just Tim and Street's heterosexual safety net, AND THIS ALSO INCLUDES any mockery or trivialization of Lyla's religion. You can ignore it if you can't find a way to fit it in with the hot three-way action, but please, *please* don't deal with it by curing her of her Christianity. One of the things I like about Lyla is that she's a very authoritative person, one who values strength and problem-solving and building things up, and in small, conservative places like Dillon, there are only so many ways a girl like Lyla is allowed to exercise control and be recognized as important without penalties: cheerleading is one route, and being active in the church is another one. I think her conversion is a response to how out-of-control she felt at the end of s1 -- she now has faith to lean on, but also, she's back in a position where she's good at something and in charge of it. So it feels, at this point in her evolution, at least, very disempowering for her to be stripped of those things in fic. As I said, I won't mind if you just don't deal with religion at all, but if you do want to deal with that part of Lyla's character arc (and that would be amazingly cool, if you did!) then please treat it respectfully.
For SGA writers:
I love Ronon. I love Ronon like John loves golf. That is all.
Oh, wait, more? Okay, um.... I would like a story where Ronon is a character, as opposed to one of those where he's just sort of sex on the buffet table for other characters. Because yes, I mean, God knows, Ronon is more hotter than hot, and please feel free to use that fact to full advantage! But he's also his own whole person, you know? And he must certainly want things from relationships and have likes and dislikes and his own baggage to work out, and hey, maybe he even needs to be wooed! Because we know canonically he's not very slutty, so maybe for once in a story someone else can chase and catch *him,* rather than just another grr!mighty-aggressor!Ronon story. That would be *awesome.* I chose the Ronon/John/Teyla combination because of its canonicity, in that we know these are the two people he's closest to, the only people he really socializes with, so it feels inside his comfort zone -- and all the way around, really, I think these three really get each other and have similar needs to balance out intimacy and independence. Then for the second request, I went with Ronon/Rodney/Carson less because there's any particular canon dynamic between the *three* of them, and more because it's one of those where I find each pair inside the overall interesting and likeable. I'm one of those who always thought Rodney and Carson had really fantastic energy and chemistry together and a lot of honesty and loyalty between them -- and Carson had that protectiveness with Ronon, I found their whole dynamic adorable -- and of course Rodney and Ronon are just fun to write in an odd-couple kind of way, but at the same time they're both very blunt and pragmatic and I think they could kind of get each other on surprising levels. I don't know, I think that one feels like the oddest of the four requests, but I think there's lots of potential there.
And, in summation:
Probably the main reason I'm always attracted to threesome stories is that I really like stories about human relationships that don't follow the kind of socially expected model: meet, date, fall in love, get married, have kids, retire, die. Het or queer, there's something sort of inherently predictable to that arc that doesn't, to me, make for the most inherently interesting dramatic situations. I *love* domesticity stories (LOVE them), including wedding-fic and kid-fic...but what I really love is stories that mix it up slightly and say that love and family and domesticity and friendship and sexual fulfillment and whatever else can look like a *lot* of different things. I don't know if that's helpful to someone who's trying to figure out what to write about, but I guess what I'm saying is that my overarching, bullet-proof kink in a romantic story is people who find theselves being happy with something they didn't expect and maybe don't know quite what to do with at first. I like to be surprised, and I'm able to be surprised if the characters are, you know?
Hopefully that's not all way too vague and philosophical. Really, though, the details don't matter to me so much, as long as the story's heart is in the right place and you have real affection for the characters you're writing. That's when stories always turn out well. Good luck!
Hth.
You have signed up for the 3_Ships gift exchange this year, and that is awesome. For all I know, you've known me for nine years and six fandoms and you have the story two-thirds finished in your head already...but there's a vastly greater chance that you don't have a clue who I am or what I might want in a story, so hopefully if that's the case this letter will make you feel slightly less lost.
I like all your basic, standard flavors -- humor, hot hot heat, angst, high romance, schmoop. I like AUs very much, both the type that are "what if X happened instead of Z, then what?" and the type where they're all pirates or robots or living out the plot of Casablanca. A happy ending is always nice, but I also love old-school tragedy. I'm not really into PWPs -- which doesn't mean that the story shouldn't be wall-to-wall sex (fine!), just that there should be some kind of character component to it, working out emotional conflict or trying to establish boundaries in a relationship or even external pressures (aliens who make them do it? Never gets old, somehow!) I like a certain amount of kink, but more along the lines of little power plays and someone being totally at their partners' disposal and something pretty and red tying up someone's wrists -- less along the lines of elaborate, negotiated BDSM scenarios. I also *love* sex scenes and/or relationships that are against one or more party's better judgment (that whole, "no, no, we can't! we shouldn't!" thing) and people being teased out of their minds. Those are my kinks in a nutshell -- though also, I should say, I wouldn't be disappointed in a good story with no explicit sex at all. I can always imagine the sex (really, I can!), but the more important thing is to see where another writer (that's you!) can take these characters that I never would've thought of.
For Buffy writers:
This is the only request I made where I was pretty serious about the "requested story elements," because I feel like prior to s8 (or maybe s7...), Xander was really too insecure and emotionally unready for a relationship like this to be a good idea. He's always looked up to both Willow and Buffy, and the s8 comics are really the first time I get the sense with him that he really believes he can bring something to them, too, rather than just hoping they have pity on him. So while I'm not asking for a story that's specifically about any of the s8 plot arcs, I do really want one that isn't set before that. Of course, if you do an AU, this may not apply, but in that case, the spirit of the request is: no young, insecure Xander. The other thing I find interesting about s8 is that Willow has been off on her own for a while, which is something that hasn't really been true of either Buffy or Xander; they've moved from having deep roots in Sunnydale to setting up deep roots in Scotland, they're nesters in some way, I think -- Xander kind of runs the household there (witty housewife with an eyepatch! how cool is that?) and Buffy seems a little mother-hennish about her students, but Willow has kind of been off on her own, taking care of herself. So there's maybe some food for thought there. If you choose to deal with backstory and previous relationships, know that I wildly adore Angel, Cordelia, Oz, and Tara, but have never really been that fond of Spike, Anya, or Kennedy. Which doesn't mean you can't bring up all or none of those characters, because they are canon and they do matter -- it's just something to know. (I have no opinion in either direction about Riley.)
For Friday Night Lights writers:
I know this is a bit of a longshot request, because so few people in fandom apparently watch FNL, but honestly, this pairing is so easy that even canon is doing it! If you want to jump right in around "Let's Get It On" and just run with the ball (er...that's a football metaphor, isn't it?), then go for it! But also, you could go pre-series, back when they were all more naively adoring of each other, or you could go for futurefic and let them sort everything out down the road. Really, there's no way to go wrong with this one. My one really specific thing to say is that Lyla is damn near my favorite character on FNL (okay, maybe Saracen is my *favorite* favorite...), and so for God's sake, whatever you do, try to avoid any hint of Lyla-abuse. THIS INCLUDES the story where she's just Tim and Street's heterosexual safety net, AND THIS ALSO INCLUDES any mockery or trivialization of Lyla's religion. You can ignore it if you can't find a way to fit it in with the hot three-way action, but please, *please* don't deal with it by curing her of her Christianity. One of the things I like about Lyla is that she's a very authoritative person, one who values strength and problem-solving and building things up, and in small, conservative places like Dillon, there are only so many ways a girl like Lyla is allowed to exercise control and be recognized as important without penalties: cheerleading is one route, and being active in the church is another one. I think her conversion is a response to how out-of-control she felt at the end of s1 -- she now has faith to lean on, but also, she's back in a position where she's good at something and in charge of it. So it feels, at this point in her evolution, at least, very disempowering for her to be stripped of those things in fic. As I said, I won't mind if you just don't deal with religion at all, but if you do want to deal with that part of Lyla's character arc (and that would be amazingly cool, if you did!) then please treat it respectfully.
For SGA writers:
I love Ronon. I love Ronon like John loves golf. That is all.
Oh, wait, more? Okay, um.... I would like a story where Ronon is a character, as opposed to one of those where he's just sort of sex on the buffet table for other characters. Because yes, I mean, God knows, Ronon is more hotter than hot, and please feel free to use that fact to full advantage! But he's also his own whole person, you know? And he must certainly want things from relationships and have likes and dislikes and his own baggage to work out, and hey, maybe he even needs to be wooed! Because we know canonically he's not very slutty, so maybe for once in a story someone else can chase and catch *him,* rather than just another grr!mighty-aggressor!Ronon story. That would be *awesome.* I chose the Ronon/John/Teyla combination because of its canonicity, in that we know these are the two people he's closest to, the only people he really socializes with, so it feels inside his comfort zone -- and all the way around, really, I think these three really get each other and have similar needs to balance out intimacy and independence. Then for the second request, I went with Ronon/Rodney/Carson less because there's any particular canon dynamic between the *three* of them, and more because it's one of those where I find each pair inside the overall interesting and likeable. I'm one of those who always thought Rodney and Carson had really fantastic energy and chemistry together and a lot of honesty and loyalty between them -- and Carson had that protectiveness with Ronon, I found their whole dynamic adorable -- and of course Rodney and Ronon are just fun to write in an odd-couple kind of way, but at the same time they're both very blunt and pragmatic and I think they could kind of get each other on surprising levels. I don't know, I think that one feels like the oddest of the four requests, but I think there's lots of potential there.
And, in summation:
Probably the main reason I'm always attracted to threesome stories is that I really like stories about human relationships that don't follow the kind of socially expected model: meet, date, fall in love, get married, have kids, retire, die. Het or queer, there's something sort of inherently predictable to that arc that doesn't, to me, make for the most inherently interesting dramatic situations. I *love* domesticity stories (LOVE them), including wedding-fic and kid-fic...but what I really love is stories that mix it up slightly and say that love and family and domesticity and friendship and sexual fulfillment and whatever else can look like a *lot* of different things. I don't know if that's helpful to someone who's trying to figure out what to write about, but I guess what I'm saying is that my overarching, bullet-proof kink in a romantic story is people who find theselves being happy with something they didn't expect and maybe don't know quite what to do with at first. I like to be surprised, and I'm able to be surprised if the characters are, you know?
Hopefully that's not all way too vague and philosophical. Really, though, the details don't matter to me so much, as long as the story's heart is in the right place and you have real affection for the characters you're writing. That's when stories always turn out well. Good luck!
Hth.
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Date: 2007-11-19 01:24 am (UTC)From: