argentum_ls (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
argentum_ls) wrote2020-10-24 09:52 pm
argentum_ls) wrote2020-10-24 09:52 pm
Entry tags:
Fest: Yuletide Letter
Dear Yuletide Writer:
Thank you so much for signing up!
What follows is a run-down of my likes/dislikes, favorite tropes, and some specific fandom discussion with optional sentence prompts. Use what you need to, but know that I know that ODAO. You're also welcome to stalk me online. I'm![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
LadySilver, argentum_ls, Argentum_LS on fanfiction.net, and ![[tumblr.com profile]](https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico)
argentum-ls on tumblr. I participate in a lot of exchanges and fests, which means I've thrown a lot of prompts out into the void. Should you see a prompt from a different exchange/fest/general rambling that you'd like to use, go for it! (Even if it's already been filled).
If you're happy with what I put in the sign-up, you prefer to write unprompted, or you have no time for a long letter, then please don't feel obligated to read this. Nothing in here is a demand. As long as you avoid my DNWs, I'll enjoy your story.
This year, I'm requesting three TV shows and a fan movie.
The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Highlander: the Watcher
Julie and the Phantoms
The Tomorrow People (2013)
Overall, what I like in a story is plot; that is, I want something to happen. Beyond that, the reins are pretty loose. I like h/c and whump, angst, drama, humor, casefic, action/adventure, and romance. I'm open to gen, het, slash, poly—though I do have some fandom-specific preferences, which are listed below. I love pairings and I also love strong friendship, sibling, and (pseudo)parent-child relationships. Ratings from G to hard-R are great. Crossovers are fantastic, though not anything I ever expect. I prefer canon based stories or canon-divergent AUs, and I prefer third-person storytelling, though I don't care if it's in past or present tense.
Wants
My favorite trope of all is Secret Identity Revealed/Discovered. The common thread of my fandoms is that at least one of the characters has superpowers or equivalent that s/he/they have to keep secret from the world at large. I love secrets. I love seeing them kept (and the cost that keeping secrets invariably has), threatened, discovered, or revealed. And I love to watch the fallout when it happens.
My second favorite is Trapped!, perhaps because it offers so many potential interpretations that all boil down to the same thing. This can be the characters getting stuck in an avalanche, cave-in, snow storm, hurricane, or any other disaster inspired reason that they have limited resources to deal with and no ability to simply walk away from. Likewise, characters being captured or held hostage, regardless of whether it's physical or psychological bondage that's keeping them there, can be a great way to show how characters act under pressure and/or to bring out sides of their personalities that we don't normally see. Other interpretations are for the characters to get stuck in the wrong time, to get stuck out-of-sync with everyone else (such as in an alternate universe or on a ghostly plane), or to simply get stuck in circumstances they'd never, ever choose to be in (such as the awkward meet-the-other-family dinner or forced-to-work-together with a person they don't like).
Other things I like:
Unexpected Allies
Outsider POV
Characters talking about their superpowers/superstate in a way that provides insight into what it means for them.
Friends with Benefits
Characters who don't trust each other learning to
When two characters believe they're talking about the same thing, but aren't.
Real world situations complicated by the supernatural
Clever or unusual uses of a character's abilities.
Trope inversions
Time travel gone wrong, including time loops, trapped out of time, or characters inadvertently messing up their timelines
Do Not Wants:
Crack
Non-canon AUs (including A/B/O, mpreg, and genderbends)
Non con
Permanent requested character maiming or death
PWPs (Romance, sexual activity, UST, or sexual tension are all fine as part of a larger story)
E or NC-17 rated sexual material
Stories based on jealousy
Character assassination/bashing
Torture!porn (e.g. the Saw movies)
Incest
Identity headcanons (e.g. trans*, autistic, asexual)
Zombies
1st or 2nd person POV
Requested Characters: Matt Murdock
I'm late coming to the Daredevil and Defenders TV shows. The former was too violent for my tastes, and the latter was fun, but didn't mean much the first time I saw it after it was released. Earlier this year someone suggested the beauty of the Daredevil episode “Nelson vs. Murdock” to me, and I became an instant convert. Matt is such a hurt cookie, and the sheer amount of time he spends in his show being too injured to move (or otherwise tied up) and being forced to confront/admit to things he’s been trying to avoid really pushes all my whump-love buttons. I love his terrible decision making and his need for connection to his friends while he also desperately wants to distance them to keep them safe. His heart's in the right place, even if his head needs some serious therapy. I also love that he has superpowers, of a sort, yet he's still blind, and his abilities give him different tools to work with without erasing his disability.
Any canon character from either Daredevil or The Defenders is welcome in your story, though I haven't watched JJ, LC, or IF, so will only be familiar with those characters as they appear in The Defenders. ETA: spoilers for the various shows are fine!
Prompts
Matt gets blackmailed for non-DD reasons, but doesn't immediately figure that out, which sends him scrambling to resolve the issue before his secret gets revealed.
Matt's use of his senses in day-to-day life create difficulties he has to work around (what are they?) when everyone expects him to be “just” blind. How does he handle this, given that he's not going to not use his senses?
You know that trope where the civilian identity gets kidnapped to try to flush out the superhero? Yeah, let's get Matt dealing with that one. Or maybe the inverse, where somehow DD is captured because the villains think that'll get Matt to follow directions.
Ships
Canon ships only please. It turns out that I have a lot of particulars about who I'd like to see Matt paired up with and how, so it's probably best to avoid the whole mess.
Requested character: David Quinlan
This is an authorized fan-movie set in the Highlander: the Series universe. While the storyline it explores isn't all that unique for anyone who's spent any time in HL fandom, I still found the movie to be fun and the main characters interesting.
I've always been a sucker for the new Immortal character, the modern person who is thrust into a world where melee combat is the order of the day and the other people around you have all lived through swaths of history that are now completely alien to the modern sensibility. As such, that makes David a character I'd love to see more of. Additionally, how does David's Watcher knowledge impact or influence his understanding of what Immortality, The Game, or Quickenings actually mean?
Prompts
David tries (or seriously considers trying) to get back together with his ex-wife now that his circumstances have changed. How does this go?
What kinds of adventures does he encounter as he hitchhikes across the country? Maybe he gets caught up in a Search & Rescue mission, or joins some volunteer firefighters, or some other such dangerous activity that he feels his Immortality would be an asset in, only to also get his eyes opened as to the limitations.
Does he ever find Campbell, and what happens if he does?
How might David's Watcher knowledge help him in ways that aren't strictly related to Immortals or Watchers?
Ships
David/OC is pretty much required if you want to do anything shippy. I have no preference for MOC or FOC.
Requested Characters: Julie Molina & Luke Patterson
To my surprise, I fell completely head-over-heels with this fandom after being kinda meh on the first episode. Sunset Curve is my primary draw, both because the boys being ghosts (powers! secrets!) and because they're functionally time-travelers who have been thrust into a world/situation they have no handbook to deal with (much to Alex's lament). The fact that they're 90s teens also speaks to me as a former 90s teen myself. Likewise, I love Julie because she's so real and she clearly has a life and relationships before the boys arrive in it, and outside of them.
I've requested Luke & Julie because their developing relationship on the show is so sweet, and also deep. They're helping each other deal with real issues of grief and loss, while also working together to find their voices. If you want to include any of the other characters, have at it!
While “permanent requested character death” is in my DNWs, obviously the boys are already dead, rather permanently so, when the canon starts. That's fine. However, please don't kill them further, either by having them cross over or cease to exist. (Threats of either of those are a-OK. Follow through is not).
Fandom-specific DNW: The boys becoming actually alive again; the boys being solid to Julie all the time.
Prompts
In the first episode, Luke is wearing a Rush shirt. As a 90s era rock musician, obviously this means that not only does Luke love the band, he has strong opinions about their albums and songs, which means he's horrified to discover that Julie barely knows who they are. (Or maybe Luke learns about Neil Peart's death and Julie needs to help him deal.)
Julie needs Luke's ghostly-help with something that isn't music related.
Someone (classmate, reporter, music exec.) figures out that Julie is the only member of the band with a “life” outside of performances and starts to investigate why; Julie has to figure out how to throw them off the scent.
Ships
Please stick with the canon ships on this one.
Requested character: Kurt Rundle
The Tomorrow People, in all its variations, is my comfort food show. I've been a fan since the 1973 version and will be a fan of whatever version comes next, no matter what its flaws may be.
The very idea of children and teenagers with something more to offer the world, yet who have to hide what they are from the world for their own safety, speaks powerfully to me. I love that the characters are thrust into situations that they don't have the experience to deal with, yet have the responsibility to take on because their powers make them the only ones who can solve the problems. I love how they are forced to rely on each other, and how although their powers separate them from their family and friends, the Tomorrow People still consider themselves part of the world at large. I also love how they continually have to grapple with the question of whether they are superior to or better than the people they're descended from, and how often the answer is “only in some ways.”
The 2013 show brought us a new generation of characters with the problems of the modern world. Further, while the other versions of the show limited the TP experience to a small and fixed group of people--which is easy to teach and monitor--this one throws the doors open to myriad people, many of whom aren't good people. This would completely change the overall TP experience. I'm really interested in seeing the characters live and function in the 21st century where new breakouts are happening all the time, and CCTV, iPhones, satellites, and social media surround and affect us all whether we want it to or not.
Prompts
ULTRA went around taking the powers from Tomorrow People as punishment for actual criminal behavior or in some kind of preemptive threat-removal. That, of course, is when they weren't simply killing or recruiting the TP. Then there's Kurt, who lost his powers at the hands of the TP themselves. As there's no indication that the power removal serum induced amnesia (except in John's case, but that was clearly a unique situation), presumably the former TP were only keeping quiet about what happened out of fear of reprisal.
What I'm interested in here is a "I used to be a TP" world building story, especially after the fall of ULTRA. Do any of these people come out of the woodwork to discuss their brief experience with superpowers? Is there a support group? Does an underground business to restore people's powers start? Are there snake oil salesmen who go around promising to "fix" the de-powered? What happens when the de-powered accept the offer? Is there a class action lawsuit?
Since I've requested Kurt, I'd like for any story to focus on his experiences; however, I'm also open to seeing the experiences of former TP OCs whom Kurt may interact with.
I'd also be interested in seeing Kurt reconnect with one of the other Tomorrow People. Maybe Stephen finds him to apologize and explain? Or they run into each other in a college class and have to work together on a project? Maybe Kurt tracks Stephen or Irene down to ask for his powers back after ULTRA is done? Or somehow Stephen needs Kurt's help when someone else breaks out? Maybe the power-removal serum has unintended side-effects and Kurt has to go back to the TP for help?
All canon characters or OCs who fit the world are welcome in your story. The ones in the tag set are Kurt, Stephen, Irene, and Charlotte, but I'd be happy to see stories with anyone.
Ships
Canon ships are all good. Really, with this show I can pretty much ship anyone with anyone as long as they're over the age of 16, within ~5 years of each other in age, and not incestuous.
NoTP: John/Jedikiah
I very much look forward to the work you're going to make. Thank you for signing up!
Thank you so much for signing up!
What follows is a run-down of my likes/dislikes, favorite tropes, and some specific fandom discussion with optional sentence prompts. Use what you need to, but know that I know that ODAO. You're also welcome to stalk me online. I'm
argentum_ls, Argentum_LS on fanfiction.net, and If you're happy with what I put in the sign-up, you prefer to write unprompted, or you have no time for a long letter, then please don't feel obligated to read this. Nothing in here is a demand. As long as you avoid my DNWs, I'll enjoy your story.
Requested Fandoms
This year, I'm requesting three TV shows and a fan movie.
About Me
Overall, what I like in a story is plot; that is, I want something to happen. Beyond that, the reins are pretty loose. I like h/c and whump, angst, drama, humor, casefic, action/adventure, and romance. I'm open to gen, het, slash, poly—though I do have some fandom-specific preferences, which are listed below. I love pairings and I also love strong friendship, sibling, and (pseudo)parent-child relationships. Ratings from G to hard-R are great. Crossovers are fantastic, though not anything I ever expect. I prefer canon based stories or canon-divergent AUs, and I prefer third-person storytelling, though I don't care if it's in past or present tense.
Tropes
Wants
My favorite trope of all is Secret Identity Revealed/Discovered. The common thread of my fandoms is that at least one of the characters has superpowers or equivalent that s/he/they have to keep secret from the world at large. I love secrets. I love seeing them kept (and the cost that keeping secrets invariably has), threatened, discovered, or revealed. And I love to watch the fallout when it happens.
My second favorite is Trapped!, perhaps because it offers so many potential interpretations that all boil down to the same thing. This can be the characters getting stuck in an avalanche, cave-in, snow storm, hurricane, or any other disaster inspired reason that they have limited resources to deal with and no ability to simply walk away from. Likewise, characters being captured or held hostage, regardless of whether it's physical or psychological bondage that's keeping them there, can be a great way to show how characters act under pressure and/or to bring out sides of their personalities that we don't normally see. Other interpretations are for the characters to get stuck in the wrong time, to get stuck out-of-sync with everyone else (such as in an alternate universe or on a ghostly plane), or to simply get stuck in circumstances they'd never, ever choose to be in (such as the awkward meet-the-other-family dinner or forced-to-work-together with a person they don't like).
Other things I like:
Do Not Wants:
The Defenders
Requested Characters: Matt Murdock
I'm late coming to the Daredevil and Defenders TV shows. The former was too violent for my tastes, and the latter was fun, but didn't mean much the first time I saw it after it was released. Earlier this year someone suggested the beauty of the Daredevil episode “Nelson vs. Murdock” to me, and I became an instant convert. Matt is such a hurt cookie, and the sheer amount of time he spends in his show being too injured to move (or otherwise tied up) and being forced to confront/admit to things he’s been trying to avoid really pushes all my whump-love buttons. I love his terrible decision making and his need for connection to his friends while he also desperately wants to distance them to keep them safe. His heart's in the right place, even if his head needs some serious therapy. I also love that he has superpowers, of a sort, yet he's still blind, and his abilities give him different tools to work with without erasing his disability.
Any canon character from either Daredevil or The Defenders is welcome in your story, though I haven't watched JJ, LC, or IF, so will only be familiar with those characters as they appear in The Defenders. ETA: spoilers for the various shows are fine!
Prompts
Ships
Canon ships only please. It turns out that I have a lot of particulars about who I'd like to see Matt paired up with and how, so it's probably best to avoid the whole mess.
Highlander: the Watcher
Requested character: David Quinlan
This is an authorized fan-movie set in the Highlander: the Series universe. While the storyline it explores isn't all that unique for anyone who's spent any time in HL fandom, I still found the movie to be fun and the main characters interesting.
I've always been a sucker for the new Immortal character, the modern person who is thrust into a world where melee combat is the order of the day and the other people around you have all lived through swaths of history that are now completely alien to the modern sensibility. As such, that makes David a character I'd love to see more of. Additionally, how does David's Watcher knowledge impact or influence his understanding of what Immortality, The Game, or Quickenings actually mean?
Prompts
Ships
David/OC is pretty much required if you want to do anything shippy. I have no preference for MOC or FOC.
Julie and the Phantoms
Requested Characters: Julie Molina & Luke Patterson
To my surprise, I fell completely head-over-heels with this fandom after being kinda meh on the first episode. Sunset Curve is my primary draw, both because the boys being ghosts (powers! secrets!) and because they're functionally time-travelers who have been thrust into a world/situation they have no handbook to deal with (much to Alex's lament). The fact that they're 90s teens also speaks to me as a former 90s teen myself. Likewise, I love Julie because she's so real and she clearly has a life and relationships before the boys arrive in it, and outside of them.
I've requested Luke & Julie because their developing relationship on the show is so sweet, and also deep. They're helping each other deal with real issues of grief and loss, while also working together to find their voices. If you want to include any of the other characters, have at it!
While “permanent requested character death” is in my DNWs, obviously the boys are already dead, rather permanently so, when the canon starts. That's fine. However, please don't kill them further, either by having them cross over or cease to exist. (Threats of either of those are a-OK. Follow through is not).
Fandom-specific DNW: The boys becoming actually alive again; the boys being solid to Julie all the time.
Prompts
Ships
Please stick with the canon ships on this one.
The Tomorrow People (2013)
Requested character: Kurt Rundle
The Tomorrow People, in all its variations, is my comfort food show. I've been a fan since the 1973 version and will be a fan of whatever version comes next, no matter what its flaws may be.
The very idea of children and teenagers with something more to offer the world, yet who have to hide what they are from the world for their own safety, speaks powerfully to me. I love that the characters are thrust into situations that they don't have the experience to deal with, yet have the responsibility to take on because their powers make them the only ones who can solve the problems. I love how they are forced to rely on each other, and how although their powers separate them from their family and friends, the Tomorrow People still consider themselves part of the world at large. I also love how they continually have to grapple with the question of whether they are superior to or better than the people they're descended from, and how often the answer is “only in some ways.”
The 2013 show brought us a new generation of characters with the problems of the modern world. Further, while the other versions of the show limited the TP experience to a small and fixed group of people--which is easy to teach and monitor--this one throws the doors open to myriad people, many of whom aren't good people. This would completely change the overall TP experience. I'm really interested in seeing the characters live and function in the 21st century where new breakouts are happening all the time, and CCTV, iPhones, satellites, and social media surround and affect us all whether we want it to or not.
Prompts
ULTRA went around taking the powers from Tomorrow People as punishment for actual criminal behavior or in some kind of preemptive threat-removal. That, of course, is when they weren't simply killing or recruiting the TP. Then there's Kurt, who lost his powers at the hands of the TP themselves. As there's no indication that the power removal serum induced amnesia (except in John's case, but that was clearly a unique situation), presumably the former TP were only keeping quiet about what happened out of fear of reprisal.
What I'm interested in here is a "I used to be a TP" world building story, especially after the fall of ULTRA. Do any of these people come out of the woodwork to discuss their brief experience with superpowers? Is there a support group? Does an underground business to restore people's powers start? Are there snake oil salesmen who go around promising to "fix" the de-powered? What happens when the de-powered accept the offer? Is there a class action lawsuit?
Since I've requested Kurt, I'd like for any story to focus on his experiences; however, I'm also open to seeing the experiences of former TP OCs whom Kurt may interact with.
I'd also be interested in seeing Kurt reconnect with one of the other Tomorrow People. Maybe Stephen finds him to apologize and explain? Or they run into each other in a college class and have to work together on a project? Maybe Kurt tracks Stephen or Irene down to ask for his powers back after ULTRA is done? Or somehow Stephen needs Kurt's help when someone else breaks out? Maybe the power-removal serum has unintended side-effects and Kurt has to go back to the TP for help?
All canon characters or OCs who fit the world are welcome in your story. The ones in the tag set are Kurt, Stephen, Irene, and Charlotte, but I'd be happy to see stories with anyone.
Ships
Canon ships are all good. Really, with this show I can pretty much ship anyone with anyone as long as they're over the age of 16, within ~5 years of each other in age, and not incestuous.
NoTP: John/Jedikiah
I very much look forward to the work you're going to make. Thank you for signing up!