Yuletide 2021 Letter
Oct. 23rd, 2021 03:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starfishstarDear yule goat, hello!
Thanks so much for writing something for me... I am easygoing (or more like: extremely enthusiastic about everything) and already looking forward to whatever you choose to write. :-)
General notes: I’m starfishstar on AO3, DW and LJ. I’m easy to please! If you write a story about any of these characters, out of love for these characters, I’m going to be delighted with it.
DNW: major character death; graphic violence; PWP; and in general I'm not looking for totally-alternate-scenario AUs (canon divergence, on the other hand, is fine!) because I really love these characters as they exist in their canon settings and am less interested in seeing them moved to a different time period or a totally alternate reality. However, if you've got a brilliant idea for an everyone-is-dinosaurs-in-outer-space AU, I'm not here to stop your muse either. I trust your judgement. ;)
Likes: A focus on character interactions, be that friendship or romance or family. Found family dynamics. Humor and banter. UST (all the UST) as long as it resolves by the end. Happy or hopeful endings (angst and complexity are fine – I like stories that are realistic! – but I do need at least a degree of hope).
ETA: I've officially opted in to the following Yuletide mini-challenges, if any of this piques your interest:
• MultiLingYule
• Jewltide
• Make the Yuletide Gay
• ...and a Partridge in a Pear Tree
• Yuletide Madness Drabble Invitational
Thank you again for writing for me! I can't wait to see what you come up with. And most importantly...have fun. :-)
Thanks so much for writing something for me... I am easygoing (or more like: extremely enthusiastic about everything) and already looking forward to whatever you choose to write. :-)
General notes: I’m starfishstar on AO3, DW and LJ. I’m easy to please! If you write a story about any of these characters, out of love for these characters, I’m going to be delighted with it.
DNW: major character death; graphic violence; PWP; and in general I'm not looking for totally-alternate-scenario AUs (canon divergence, on the other hand, is fine!) because I really love these characters as they exist in their canon settings and am less interested in seeing them moved to a different time period or a totally alternate reality. However, if you've got a brilliant idea for an everyone-is-dinosaurs-in-outer-space AU, I'm not here to stop your muse either. I trust your judgement. ;)
Likes: A focus on character interactions, be that friendship or romance or family. Found family dynamics. Humor and banter. UST (all the UST) as long as it resolves by the end. Happy or hopeful endings (angst and complexity are fine – I like stories that are realistic! – but I do need at least a degree of hope).
Requested fandoms:
Call Me By Your Name (2017) – ANY (i.e., Elio, Oliver, Annella, Samuel, or any combination thereof)
This seems to have become my Yuletide forever fandom, because I first fell into writing (and requesting) this fandom via Yuletide. So now it's become a sentimental necessity to request it at Yuletide. :D
Tell me absolutely any story of Elio/Oliver. During that summer, the longing before they confess their feelings, the stolen moments once they’ve come together, the bittersweetness as the summer rushes to its close; or give me the story of after – do they stay together? do they find each other again 20 years later? or something in between?
I love the lushness of this world – emotionally, visually, everything. It's an achingly beautiful portrait of being on the cusp of adulthood and falling in first love, and what exquisite agony both of those things can be. Elio is a perfect encapsulation of all of that: awkward and longing and passionate and bold. This request is for movie canon, but one thing I love from the book is the whole section in Rome, that endless night of new experiences, Elio discovering the world and engaging with it as an adult for the first time, being treated as an adult for the first time – basically falling in love with life at the same time as he's falling in love with Oliver, discovering that there's so much more to the world than he knew. So if you want to explore anything like that – not necessarily Rome specifically, but rather that pairing of "Elio/world" along with "Elio/Oliver" – I'd certainly enjoy that.
I also love Elio's parents, so wise and kind, and how they give him space to grow while also being there to catch him if he falls. They're fantastic, empathetic people, separately or together, and I love seeing their dynamic with Elio, or with Oliver – Oliver, who (it seems to me) clearly hasn't had that kind of unconditional parental support. What does it mean to Oliver to have that, from two adults who respect and care for him...and who are also all tangled up with the boy he's falling in love with? Is he able to let himself accept that love (both the romantic kind and the familial kind)?
I love these two characters, and I do long to see them get a chance to be happy together – but I'm definitely appreciative of fics that work through all the obstacles they face, rather than waving them away. (The age difference, the living-on-different-continents difference, Oliver's own fears and hesitance, Elio's feelings that are all so unfamiliar and brand new...) If you can bring them back together in a way that feels earned, I'd love that.
Or, you know, don't worry about all of that and just do a fun or sexy or reflective missing-scene moment from the film. It's all good!
Bonus prompt: I'm Jewish, and I love that these characters are Jewish and that it's part of what connects them. For all he has more hang-ups in other ways, Oliver is more confident and open in his Judaism than Elio's family is, and that's new and exciting for Elio, another thing to admire about Oliver... If you're Jewish, or can write about Judaism knowledgeably/sensitively, I always love to read a fic that involves Judaism being somehow an important point of connection between them. Celebrating a holiday or tradition together? Sharing favorite family foods? Discovering unexpected differences between the traditions they grew up with (Oliver in the US, Elio in Italy)? Or anything else that acknowledges Jewish culture/tradition as a shared identity, something that draws Elio toward Oliver, and the parallel of being both gay (bi? queer?) and Jewish, how both of those set Elio and Oliver apart from many other people, and connect them to each other.
Fandom-specific DNW: Plot points/characters from “Find Me”; treating female characters dismissively (i.e., please either don’t include Marzia in the fic at all, or let her be a fully developed character in her own right).
Seraphina – Rachel Hartman – ANY (i.e., Seraphina, Kiggs, Glisselda, Orma, or any combination thereof)
Oh, book series of my heart. <3 I appreciate so very much the empathy with which Rachel Hartman writes her characters. And oh, how I love these characters! (And this world! Oh, Rachel Hartman’s worldbuilding!) You don't have to include all of the nominated characters; feel free to also include Tess, or any other characters from Seraphina (Abdo and the other half-dragons?), or anything anything else about this world that appeals to you. Here are some things that perpetually interest me, just as a few ideas:
* Seraphina/Kiggs/Glisselda post-Shadow Scale – I’m not really looking for explicit fic here; rather, I’m endlessly curious about the dynamics of this relationship, what kind of day-to-day life the three of them build for themselves and how their triad works. Do the ways they have to play pretend in public take a toll? When they get precious moments just to be themselves, what is that like? Come to think of it, this needn’t necessarily be shipping fic – just give me Seraphina & Kiggs & Glisselda bantering together in the behind-the-scenes of running a kingdom.
* Orma! I love Orma and the awkward, dragon-ish, and yet ultimately very loving bond between him and Seraphina. They don’t always understand each other, but he really looks out for her. (And you get the sense that throughout her childhood he was often the *only* one looking out for her, which is heartbreaking.) So: Orma and Seraphina in her childhood, Orma and Seraphina during the events of the books, Orma post-memory pearl…?
One of my favorite lines from the book is this:
“Orma moved a pile of books off a stool for me but seated himself directly on another stack. This habit of his never ceased to amuse me. Dragons no longer hoarded gold; Comonot's reforms had outlawed it. For Orma and his generation, knowledge was treasure. As dragons through the ages had done, he gathered it, then he sat on it.” :D I love that image, Orma the dragon atop his hoard of…knowledge.
* World, worldbuilding, dragons... Such fascinating stuff: dragons who can transform physically into human shape (but still remain dragon-minded), the cultural differences between dragons and humans based on their very, very different histories and ways of interacting with their environment. Dragons and quigutl. Quigutl and humans. Any of that would be interesting to explore!
Graceling Realm Series – Kristin Cashore – Katsa, Po, Bitterblue, Giddon (and/or others!)
Rereading one of these books is like getting to snuggle down into a warm, cozy, familiar place. I just adore these characters and how they interact with each other. When I reread Bitterblue a year and a bit ago, that was what I noticed most: how much I love these characters and how they banter, and take care of each other, and have differences but then work on their differences, and create a big, safe web of family for each other...
Technically, I've requested Katsa, Po, Bitterblue and Giddon, since I had to pick something and those characters do seem to live at the core of the dynamics I keep coming back to. BUT first of all you absolutely don't have to include all four of them, AND you're more than welcome to include as many other characters from the books as you like. Here are just a few ideas:
* This is a bit of a wildcard prompt, because I hadn't even thought of it until recently, but: Giddon/Po? That section of Bitterblue where Giddon learns Po's secret, and is so angry at him, and then works through it and they get back to being awesome buddies... It totally works as a platonic friendship thing, but on rereading, it also gave me some seriously intriguing shippy feels. They're clearly great friends, who get along really well and have each other's backs. What would that period in their lives (the Grace reveal and subsequent falling out) look like if Giddon and Po's feelings for each other were more than platonic?
* Bitterblue & Po and/or Katsa: I love the big sister-little sister dynamic between Katsa and Bitterblue; ditto the close bond between Bitterblue and Po, how he always looks out for his little cousin. Bitterblue clearly adores and idolizes both of them, but also sometimes feels left out of the intensity that is Katsa-and-Po. What would it take to move the three of them towards equals and friends, rather than only big sibling-little sibling dynamics? Maybe on a mission for the council or having to work together to solve some problem in Bitterblue’s kingdom?
* Katsa/Po, having their wild, glorious, adventurous mostly-shared life, where they go their separate ways, do their separate good works, but always find their way back to each other. I’d be happy to see them on one of their council missions, or just hanging out and enjoying each other’s company.
* I am a big sap for Giddon's undying devotion to Bitterblue; it's so over the top, but I don't think I'll ever get tired of it. :-) So feel free to write about that, too!
* I am here for Raffin, and Raffin/Bann, since they're great and we mostly only ever get to see them in background, while other characters are having more dramatic things happening. Raffin, though, could be an incredibly interesting main character in his own right! The reluctant future king, who doesn't actually want to rule but feels a responsibility because he'd be so much better at it than his awful father. What will Raffin's kingship look like? (Either in a fic set in the future where he's already king, or in the more present day of the series, where he'd be thinking ahead and trying to figure out what to do.) Can there eventually be a way that he and Bann can be public and official, and Raffin can still be king? Or just give me happy Raffin/Bann content. :-)
* For that matter, I'm totally a fan of Fire and Brigan as well, if you'd rather write there. I unfortunately wasn't as captivated by Winterkeep (though I probably need to reread it) so I'm less interested in that set of characters. Except...Adventure Fox! I'd happily read any story from Adventure Fox's POV. And for that matter, you're welcome to write any/all of the characters mentioned above traveling in and interacting with Winterkeep - I'm less interested in a fic that has Lovisa, Mari, Nev, etc. as the main set of characters, but I have nothing against them, if that makes sense.
Fleabag (TV) – Fleabag (with any or all of the others!)
For characters, I've requested just Fleabag, to leave maximum leeway to write whoever else you want with her!
I'm certainly always interested in Fleabag/Priest in any form. (Stay together? Canon bittersweet parting? Get back together later? Or not?) Feel free to go at it from any unusual angle or format you want, in keeping with the spirit of the Fleabag-interacting-with-the-camera style of the show... Outsider POV? Epistolary fic? Nonlinear? Interactive? Anything!
Speaking of which, I nominated the Fox as a character this year, because I think it would be SO INTERESTING (and so much fun!) to dive deep into the mythology of the foxes that follow the Priest around... Who are these foxes? What does this mean?? Are they benevolent? Or are they out to get him like he thinks? Or do they have some other, totally alien perspective we haven't even thought of yet, far beyond our paltry human conceptions of good and evil? Are they God? Are they sent by God? Does God exist? Feel free to take that anywhere you like. Go wild!
I'm also a fan of all explorations of Fleabag & Claire. I love their arc, across the course of the two seasons, so much. How they finally reach that place of recognizing and admitting that, as Claire says, they are the only person each of them would run through an airport for. What is Claire’s next chapter? Finland? Is she happy with her new job? Does she settle down with Klare? Does Fleabag visit her? How does Fleabag cope with Finland???
I'm also totally fine with it if you want to focus on any of the other nominated characters, or take Fleabag into a new chapter of her life with characters we haven't met yet. Where does life take her next, after the show's bittersweet yet somehow utterly right and satisfying ending?
John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme
Technically I've only requested "Finnemore | The Storyteller (JFSP S 1-8)" – since I felt I ought to pick something. But I'm fine with anywhere you want to take this, seriously. I love John Finnemore's writing, with its combination of humor and kindness, and I'm basically just a fan of everything. So pick your favorite corner of this sprawling 9-series show and please take this as carte blanche to have fun!
* I will never say no to "Since You Ask Me..." tale. I love the virtuosic wordplay and unrepentant silliness.
* To throw some more ideas into the mix, here is a VERY INCOMPLETE LIST of some of my favorite sketches. (I'm just copying over a list I put together a couple Yuletides ago, so this may not be the absolute most up to date. But just to give you an idea of a few that I come back to especially often.)
– The Goldfish and King Neptune
– Before You're Thirty (Be kind, have fun)
– JFSP Accidentally
– Towels (‘Towels on the bed mean Sleepy Towels’)
– Horse Box
– A History of Choice
– No Further Questions
– Pet Tips
– Animal Designers Crisis
– New Friend (sniffer dog)
– The Interview Sketch - Ice Cream Van Painter
– Will The Train Manager Contact The Driver + Train Delay
– Belgium
– New Player Tutorial
– Russian Revolution by Email
– Animal Interviews
– Three Guards (Tiger with a gun)
– Since You Ask Me’s such as: Denouement Parlour, Ghost Story (Eagling), Spies (A mole in the zoo), Proposal, Family Curse (Wim-Bim-King-Sim-Sham), Murder Mystery (Turbot Bacardi), Train Adventure ('You are Uncles by trade?'), Crossing the Atlantic (Mr. Floofywhiskers), Ghost Story (Jacket pocket jacket pocket), Mysterious Trapdoor, etc. etc. etc.
– John-the-character musing about things that John-the-writer has clearly also found himself thinking about, e.g., how to tell the hot-water tap from the cold-water tap
* Also, although S9 has been separated out from S1–8, in Yuletide terms, I'm totally happy if you want to write based on S9! I thought the series was brilliantly put together. (I mean, obviously – it's John Finnemore!) Clever and thoughtful and all the best things. And all the many little references to the many, many, many little threads and themes that run all the way through all six episodes! It's like the entire thing is constructed of Easter eggs. <3 I think it would be especially fun if you want to play in a similar format to the show – tell a story backwards, and/or in vignettes, and/or whatever else about this wonderful and unusual series of the show inspires you, format-wise. Or do anything else you think would be fun and I haven't thought of yet. :D
Call Me By Your Name (2017) – ANY (i.e., Elio, Oliver, Annella, Samuel, or any combination thereof)
This seems to have become my Yuletide forever fandom, because I first fell into writing (and requesting) this fandom via Yuletide. So now it's become a sentimental necessity to request it at Yuletide. :D
Tell me absolutely any story of Elio/Oliver. During that summer, the longing before they confess their feelings, the stolen moments once they’ve come together, the bittersweetness as the summer rushes to its close; or give me the story of after – do they stay together? do they find each other again 20 years later? or something in between?
I love the lushness of this world – emotionally, visually, everything. It's an achingly beautiful portrait of being on the cusp of adulthood and falling in first love, and what exquisite agony both of those things can be. Elio is a perfect encapsulation of all of that: awkward and longing and passionate and bold. This request is for movie canon, but one thing I love from the book is the whole section in Rome, that endless night of new experiences, Elio discovering the world and engaging with it as an adult for the first time, being treated as an adult for the first time – basically falling in love with life at the same time as he's falling in love with Oliver, discovering that there's so much more to the world than he knew. So if you want to explore anything like that – not necessarily Rome specifically, but rather that pairing of "Elio/world" along with "Elio/Oliver" – I'd certainly enjoy that.
I also love Elio's parents, so wise and kind, and how they give him space to grow while also being there to catch him if he falls. They're fantastic, empathetic people, separately or together, and I love seeing their dynamic with Elio, or with Oliver – Oliver, who (it seems to me) clearly hasn't had that kind of unconditional parental support. What does it mean to Oliver to have that, from two adults who respect and care for him...and who are also all tangled up with the boy he's falling in love with? Is he able to let himself accept that love (both the romantic kind and the familial kind)?
I love these two characters, and I do long to see them get a chance to be happy together – but I'm definitely appreciative of fics that work through all the obstacles they face, rather than waving them away. (The age difference, the living-on-different-continents difference, Oliver's own fears and hesitance, Elio's feelings that are all so unfamiliar and brand new...) If you can bring them back together in a way that feels earned, I'd love that.
Or, you know, don't worry about all of that and just do a fun or sexy or reflective missing-scene moment from the film. It's all good!
Bonus prompt: I'm Jewish, and I love that these characters are Jewish and that it's part of what connects them. For all he has more hang-ups in other ways, Oliver is more confident and open in his Judaism than Elio's family is, and that's new and exciting for Elio, another thing to admire about Oliver... If you're Jewish, or can write about Judaism knowledgeably/sensitively, I always love to read a fic that involves Judaism being somehow an important point of connection between them. Celebrating a holiday or tradition together? Sharing favorite family foods? Discovering unexpected differences between the traditions they grew up with (Oliver in the US, Elio in Italy)? Or anything else that acknowledges Jewish culture/tradition as a shared identity, something that draws Elio toward Oliver, and the parallel of being both gay (bi? queer?) and Jewish, how both of those set Elio and Oliver apart from many other people, and connect them to each other.
Fandom-specific DNW: Plot points/characters from “Find Me”; treating female characters dismissively (i.e., please either don’t include Marzia in the fic at all, or let her be a fully developed character in her own right).
Seraphina – Rachel Hartman – ANY (i.e., Seraphina, Kiggs, Glisselda, Orma, or any combination thereof)
Oh, book series of my heart. <3 I appreciate so very much the empathy with which Rachel Hartman writes her characters. And oh, how I love these characters! (And this world! Oh, Rachel Hartman’s worldbuilding!) You don't have to include all of the nominated characters; feel free to also include Tess, or any other characters from Seraphina (Abdo and the other half-dragons?), or anything anything else about this world that appeals to you. Here are some things that perpetually interest me, just as a few ideas:
* Seraphina/Kiggs/Glisselda post-Shadow Scale – I’m not really looking for explicit fic here; rather, I’m endlessly curious about the dynamics of this relationship, what kind of day-to-day life the three of them build for themselves and how their triad works. Do the ways they have to play pretend in public take a toll? When they get precious moments just to be themselves, what is that like? Come to think of it, this needn’t necessarily be shipping fic – just give me Seraphina & Kiggs & Glisselda bantering together in the behind-the-scenes of running a kingdom.
* Orma! I love Orma and the awkward, dragon-ish, and yet ultimately very loving bond between him and Seraphina. They don’t always understand each other, but he really looks out for her. (And you get the sense that throughout her childhood he was often the *only* one looking out for her, which is heartbreaking.) So: Orma and Seraphina in her childhood, Orma and Seraphina during the events of the books, Orma post-memory pearl…?
One of my favorite lines from the book is this:
“Orma moved a pile of books off a stool for me but seated himself directly on another stack. This habit of his never ceased to amuse me. Dragons no longer hoarded gold; Comonot's reforms had outlawed it. For Orma and his generation, knowledge was treasure. As dragons through the ages had done, he gathered it, then he sat on it.” :D I love that image, Orma the dragon atop his hoard of…knowledge.
* World, worldbuilding, dragons... Such fascinating stuff: dragons who can transform physically into human shape (but still remain dragon-minded), the cultural differences between dragons and humans based on their very, very different histories and ways of interacting with their environment. Dragons and quigutl. Quigutl and humans. Any of that would be interesting to explore!
Graceling Realm Series – Kristin Cashore – Katsa, Po, Bitterblue, Giddon (and/or others!)
Rereading one of these books is like getting to snuggle down into a warm, cozy, familiar place. I just adore these characters and how they interact with each other. When I reread Bitterblue a year and a bit ago, that was what I noticed most: how much I love these characters and how they banter, and take care of each other, and have differences but then work on their differences, and create a big, safe web of family for each other...
Technically, I've requested Katsa, Po, Bitterblue and Giddon, since I had to pick something and those characters do seem to live at the core of the dynamics I keep coming back to. BUT first of all you absolutely don't have to include all four of them, AND you're more than welcome to include as many other characters from the books as you like. Here are just a few ideas:
* This is a bit of a wildcard prompt, because I hadn't even thought of it until recently, but: Giddon/Po? That section of Bitterblue where Giddon learns Po's secret, and is so angry at him, and then works through it and they get back to being awesome buddies... It totally works as a platonic friendship thing, but on rereading, it also gave me some seriously intriguing shippy feels. They're clearly great friends, who get along really well and have each other's backs. What would that period in their lives (the Grace reveal and subsequent falling out) look like if Giddon and Po's feelings for each other were more than platonic?
* Bitterblue & Po and/or Katsa: I love the big sister-little sister dynamic between Katsa and Bitterblue; ditto the close bond between Bitterblue and Po, how he always looks out for his little cousin. Bitterblue clearly adores and idolizes both of them, but also sometimes feels left out of the intensity that is Katsa-and-Po. What would it take to move the three of them towards equals and friends, rather than only big sibling-little sibling dynamics? Maybe on a mission for the council or having to work together to solve some problem in Bitterblue’s kingdom?
* Katsa/Po, having their wild, glorious, adventurous mostly-shared life, where they go their separate ways, do their separate good works, but always find their way back to each other. I’d be happy to see them on one of their council missions, or just hanging out and enjoying each other’s company.
* I am a big sap for Giddon's undying devotion to Bitterblue; it's so over the top, but I don't think I'll ever get tired of it. :-) So feel free to write about that, too!
* I am here for Raffin, and Raffin/Bann, since they're great and we mostly only ever get to see them in background, while other characters are having more dramatic things happening. Raffin, though, could be an incredibly interesting main character in his own right! The reluctant future king, who doesn't actually want to rule but feels a responsibility because he'd be so much better at it than his awful father. What will Raffin's kingship look like? (Either in a fic set in the future where he's already king, or in the more present day of the series, where he'd be thinking ahead and trying to figure out what to do.) Can there eventually be a way that he and Bann can be public and official, and Raffin can still be king? Or just give me happy Raffin/Bann content. :-)
* For that matter, I'm totally a fan of Fire and Brigan as well, if you'd rather write there. I unfortunately wasn't as captivated by Winterkeep (though I probably need to reread it) so I'm less interested in that set of characters. Except...Adventure Fox! I'd happily read any story from Adventure Fox's POV. And for that matter, you're welcome to write any/all of the characters mentioned above traveling in and interacting with Winterkeep - I'm less interested in a fic that has Lovisa, Mari, Nev, etc. as the main set of characters, but I have nothing against them, if that makes sense.
Fleabag (TV) – Fleabag (with any or all of the others!)
For characters, I've requested just Fleabag, to leave maximum leeway to write whoever else you want with her!
I'm certainly always interested in Fleabag/Priest in any form. (Stay together? Canon bittersweet parting? Get back together later? Or not?) Feel free to go at it from any unusual angle or format you want, in keeping with the spirit of the Fleabag-interacting-with-the-camera style of the show... Outsider POV? Epistolary fic? Nonlinear? Interactive? Anything!
Speaking of which, I nominated the Fox as a character this year, because I think it would be SO INTERESTING (and so much fun!) to dive deep into the mythology of the foxes that follow the Priest around... Who are these foxes? What does this mean?? Are they benevolent? Or are they out to get him like he thinks? Or do they have some other, totally alien perspective we haven't even thought of yet, far beyond our paltry human conceptions of good and evil? Are they God? Are they sent by God? Does God exist? Feel free to take that anywhere you like. Go wild!
I'm also a fan of all explorations of Fleabag & Claire. I love their arc, across the course of the two seasons, so much. How they finally reach that place of recognizing and admitting that, as Claire says, they are the only person each of them would run through an airport for. What is Claire’s next chapter? Finland? Is she happy with her new job? Does she settle down with Klare? Does Fleabag visit her? How does Fleabag cope with Finland???
I'm also totally fine with it if you want to focus on any of the other nominated characters, or take Fleabag into a new chapter of her life with characters we haven't met yet. Where does life take her next, after the show's bittersweet yet somehow utterly right and satisfying ending?
John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme
Technically I've only requested "Finnemore | The Storyteller (JFSP S 1-8)" – since I felt I ought to pick something. But I'm fine with anywhere you want to take this, seriously. I love John Finnemore's writing, with its combination of humor and kindness, and I'm basically just a fan of everything. So pick your favorite corner of this sprawling 9-series show and please take this as carte blanche to have fun!
* I will never say no to "Since You Ask Me..." tale. I love the virtuosic wordplay and unrepentant silliness.
* To throw some more ideas into the mix, here is a VERY INCOMPLETE LIST of some of my favorite sketches. (I'm just copying over a list I put together a couple Yuletides ago, so this may not be the absolute most up to date. But just to give you an idea of a few that I come back to especially often.)
– The Goldfish and King Neptune
– Before You're Thirty (Be kind, have fun)
– JFSP Accidentally
– Towels (‘Towels on the bed mean Sleepy Towels’)
– Horse Box
– A History of Choice
– No Further Questions
– Pet Tips
– Animal Designers Crisis
– New Friend (sniffer dog)
– The Interview Sketch - Ice Cream Van Painter
– Will The Train Manager Contact The Driver + Train Delay
– Belgium
– New Player Tutorial
– Russian Revolution by Email
– Animal Interviews
– Three Guards (Tiger with a gun)
– Since You Ask Me’s such as: Denouement Parlour, Ghost Story (Eagling), Spies (A mole in the zoo), Proposal, Family Curse (Wim-Bim-King-Sim-Sham), Murder Mystery (Turbot Bacardi), Train Adventure ('You are Uncles by trade?'), Crossing the Atlantic (Mr. Floofywhiskers), Ghost Story (Jacket pocket jacket pocket), Mysterious Trapdoor, etc. etc. etc.
– John-the-character musing about things that John-the-writer has clearly also found himself thinking about, e.g., how to tell the hot-water tap from the cold-water tap
* Also, although S9 has been separated out from S1–8, in Yuletide terms, I'm totally happy if you want to write based on S9! I thought the series was brilliantly put together. (I mean, obviously – it's John Finnemore!) Clever and thoughtful and all the best things. And all the many little references to the many, many, many little threads and themes that run all the way through all six episodes! It's like the entire thing is constructed of Easter eggs. <3 I think it would be especially fun if you want to play in a similar format to the show – tell a story backwards, and/or in vignettes, and/or whatever else about this wonderful and unusual series of the show inspires you, format-wise. Or do anything else you think would be fun and I haven't thought of yet. :D
ETA: I've officially opted in to the following Yuletide mini-challenges, if any of this piques your interest:
• MultiLingYule
• Jewltide
• Make the Yuletide Gay
• ...and a Partridge in a Pear Tree
• Yuletide Madness Drabble Invitational
Thank you again for writing for me! I can't wait to see what you come up with. And most importantly...have fun. :-)
