Fest: Yuletide
Oct. 21st, 2022 04:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
argentum_lsDear 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, and ![[tumblr.com profile]](https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico)
argentum-ls. 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/conversation on Discord 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 four TV shows.
Henry Danger
My Secret Identity
Superman & Lois: The New Adventures
The Tomorrow People (2013)
ETA: I love treats. If you're so inclined, I'd love to receive them.
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.
Should you happen to be the crossover type, any live-action fandom I've ever written is fair game. And if you know me and know there's a fandom I haven't written in that I'd like, that's fair game too.
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 on the person and their relationships with others), 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 likes:
Unexpected Allies
Outsider POV
Characters talking about their superpowers/superstate in a way that provides insight into what it means for them.
Characters who don't trust each other learning to
Real world situations complicated by the supernatural/superpowers
Clever or unusual uses of a character's abilities.
Trope inversions
Coming of Age
Canon-based, post-canon, or canon-divergent stories
Gen, het, slash, poly stories, except where specifically indicated
Time travel gone wrong, including time loops, trapped out of time, or characters inadvertently messing up their timelines
Bodyswap/Mindswap
Do Not Wants:
Crack
Non-canon AUs (including omegaverse, 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
Henry Hart
It's no secret that superheroes are one of my favorite types of character, and especially when the story is about the double life the superhero has to lead. I absolutely love the conflicts that our character has to deal with because of needing to keep his story straight; needing to lie to people he doesn't want to lie to; needing to pretend to be weak or incapable in situations where, in costume, he'd totally be crushing the problem; and needing to constantly re-calibrate his understanding of normal vs. what everyone else thinks is normal. As indicated in my likes, I'm also a huge h/c and whump fan, but especially when it's the kind of superhero whump where being thrown into a wall only causes some bruises and temporary limping and being caught in a explosion doesn't do much worse than ruining your clothes. Henry Danger fed all of my likes here, though it sometimes went a little too far with things used as jokes that I personally find horrifying, like the mind-wiper or the teleporting accident at the end of "Saturday Night Lies."
I love all the characters on this show, though I'm especially fond of Henry and Piper's later relationship, after she knows he's Kid Danger, and the friendship among Henry, Jasper, and Charlotte. Feel free to include anyone. For villains, Drex is probably my favorite because of the conflict with him being the failed sidekick. I'm also a fan of Jeff, Gwen, and Kyle.
Should you think it's relevant, I have seen every episode of Henry Danger, most of Danger Force, and enough of the The Adventures of Kid Danger to not care about spoilers.
Optional Prompts
Kid Danger starts to date someone who only knows him as Kid Danger. Now guess who Henry Hart's new lab partner is? Just guess. How does he handle this?
Henry gets the chance to re-try all the powers he's ever had, one at a time, and decide which one, if any, he wants to keep. What does he choose, and why?
While out and about and in a position where he can’t get a refill, Henry runs out of gumballs.
So, I kinda fell hard into this show when it dropped on Netflix and had a lot of thoughts. If you want more prompts, there are 35 of them here: Danger Prompts. (I won't blame you at all if you don't want to go into this rabbit hole.)
Additional Canon Note: Henry Danger has a lot of crack-y elements, and Crack is both a somewhat ambiguous term and in my DNWs. If the show went there, so can you -- though I would prefer if things like the alternate universe where everyone is Henry are kept as throwaway jokes rather than being the setting of the story. I love most of what the show does, and I absolutely eat up all the lampshading ("The rules of time travel change every time we do it, dude!"), but I prefer when the weird-for-the-sake-of-being-weird jokes are not the focus.
Completely Optional Crossover Prompt
Superman & Lois/Henry Danger. While experimenting with one of Schwoz's devices, Henry finds himself stuck in the S&L universe. The only way home is at the Fortress. To get there, Henry has to befriend Jordan. (Maybe, along the way, he shares a gumball with him and gives Jordan a peek at the costumed life). (Note: If Jon doesn't fit into this prompt, that's fine. Although, maybe he'd like to try a gumball too? After all, Henry fought crime for years without any powers.)
Ships:
Henry/Charlotte/Jasper
Kid Danger/Kyle
Henry/OFC
NoTP: Henry/Ray
Requests: Andrew Clements & Kirk Stevens
One of the things I really liked about MSI was that the show was a real world/real high school setting. Andrew had powers, but there was no reason for the powers: no super villains, no prophecy, no great mission. Andrew so desperately wanted to be a superhero, and all he could really manage to be was an awkward teenager with teenage issues and the ability to float, run really fast, and be strong (which were just as often the problem as they were the solution). The police weren’t clamoring for his help, he didn’t masquerade as a vigilante (nor did it go very well when he tried), and the newspapers and public had no knowledge that a superhero lived among them. There’s a great metaphor in all this about the person we are inside and the person we’re allowed to show to others.
Another thing I really liked was how much Andrew fanboyed his own powers. While Ultraman was only mentioned in the first season, I loved that the character even existed. Andrew delighted in being able to do what he could do, and who could blame him? (Well, Dr. J could and did, but that’s beside the point.) Though Andrew did eventually mature a little and calm down (and what did happen to his comic book collection?), I don’t think he ever truly lost the wonder.
Andrew and Kirk are an interesting relationship because they're old friends who don't know much about each other. I think about who I was at 7 and who I was at 16 and how many friendships fell away for good reasons in the intervening years, and it really makes me wonder what makes this friendship tick and why both guys assumed their friendship should just pick up where it left off.
Optional Promots:
A lab accident causes Andrew's powers to sometimes leap into Kirk. The boys discover this in the most inopportune way.
Andrew and Kirk get tied together as part of a class project on trust. It turns out, they have a lot to learn about each other.
Kirk figures out that Andrew is hiding something from him, but arrives at a plausible yet wrong conclusion that he then proceeds to act on, much to Andrew's confusion.
Kirk needs to help Andrew conceal his powers. Andrew didn't know that Kirk knew about his powers.
All canon characters are welcome to help populate your story, as are OCs who fit the world.
Requests: Jordan & Jonathan Kent
Ahh, my summer romance. I fell hard into this show this summer after managing to barely notice its existence for almost two years. What can I say? They gave me a coming of age story with superpowers set in a family drama, then proceeded to whump the hell out of the characters. ::sigh:: It's a predictable formula to my heart. Besides what's already mentioned, what I love most about this show is the twins and their relationship. They're so supportive of one another, and their bond is so strong, that even when they're on the outs, they will still drop everything to come to the other's aid. All I really want here is stories of the two of them getting into and out of trouble. But I love the rest of the family, too, and the Cushings (especially Sarah and Kyle), so feel free to rope any of them into the shenanigans.
While I am not on Team Give Jon Powers, I'm completely open to Jon getting to experience temporary powers via something like a bodyswap scenario or a Kryptonite mishap. The DNW in my sign-up is in regards to Jon developing permanent powers or abilities.
Optional Prompts
While stuck in a school lockdown (either drill or real), Jordan's anxiety threatens his control of his powers. If only the one person who knew how to help wasn't caught up in problems of his own.
After growing up in Metropolis, the boys find living full-time in small town Kansas to be, perhaps, more alien than their actual alien heritage. Their cultural adjustment to Smallville comes with some unexpected missteps that they have to help each other navigate.
This was not supposed to happen ...
In the wake of the X-K scandal, Jordan is determined to help Jon repair his reputation. If that's going to require super-powered assistance, then so be it.
Ships:
Canon ships are great, as is Jon/OMC or Jon/OFC.
Completely Optional Crossover Prompt
S&L & Henry Danger. While experimenting with one of Schwoz's devices, Henry finds himself stuck in the S&L universe. The only way home is at the Fortress. To get there, Henry has to befriend Jordan. (Maybe, along the way, he shares a gumball with him and gives Jordan a peek at the costumed life). (Note: If Jon doesn't fit into this prompt, that's fine. Although, maybe he'd like to try a gumball too? After all, Henry fought crime for years without any powers.)
Worldbuilding
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.
Optional Prompt
An "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? How does one go about proving that they used to have superpowers? Are there any long-term health consequences to having one's powers removed? Do people who used to be TP regain their ability to kill after their powers are removed?
All canon characters or OCs who fit the world are welcome in your story.
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
If you're reading this letter with an eye toward treats and wish I'd requested any of the other Tomorrow People versions instead, no worries! I will never turn down stories about those shows.
I very much look forward to what you're going to write. 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, 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.
This year I'm requesting four TV shows.
ETA: I love treats. If you're so inclined, I'd love to receive them.
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.
Should you happen to be the crossover type, any live-action fandom I've ever written is fair game. And if you know me and know there's a fandom I haven't written in that I'd like, that's fair game too.
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 on the person and their relationships with others), 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 likes:
Unexpected Allies
Outsider POV
Characters talking about their superpowers/superstate in a way that provides insight into what it means for them.
Characters who don't trust each other learning to
Real world situations complicated by the supernatural/superpowers
Clever or unusual uses of a character's abilities.
Trope inversions
Coming of Age
Canon-based, post-canon, or canon-divergent stories
Gen, het, slash, poly stories, except where specifically indicated
Time travel gone wrong, including time loops, trapped out of time, or characters inadvertently messing up their timelines
Bodyswap/Mindswap
Do Not Wants:
Crack
Non-canon AUs (including omegaverse, 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 Fandoms
Henry Danger
Henry Hart
It's no secret that superheroes are one of my favorite types of character, and especially when the story is about the double life the superhero has to lead. I absolutely love the conflicts that our character has to deal with because of needing to keep his story straight; needing to lie to people he doesn't want to lie to; needing to pretend to be weak or incapable in situations where, in costume, he'd totally be crushing the problem; and needing to constantly re-calibrate his understanding of normal vs. what everyone else thinks is normal. As indicated in my likes, I'm also a huge h/c and whump fan, but especially when it's the kind of superhero whump where being thrown into a wall only causes some bruises and temporary limping and being caught in a explosion doesn't do much worse than ruining your clothes. Henry Danger fed all of my likes here, though it sometimes went a little too far with things used as jokes that I personally find horrifying, like the mind-wiper or the teleporting accident at the end of "Saturday Night Lies."
I love all the characters on this show, though I'm especially fond of Henry and Piper's later relationship, after she knows he's Kid Danger, and the friendship among Henry, Jasper, and Charlotte. Feel free to include anyone. For villains, Drex is probably my favorite because of the conflict with him being the failed sidekick. I'm also a fan of Jeff, Gwen, and Kyle.
Should you think it's relevant, I have seen every episode of Henry Danger, most of Danger Force, and enough of the The Adventures of Kid Danger to not care about spoilers.
Optional Prompts
So, I kinda fell hard into this show when it dropped on Netflix and had a lot of thoughts. If you want more prompts, there are 35 of them here: Danger Prompts. (I won't blame you at all if you don't want to go into this rabbit hole.)
Additional Canon Note: Henry Danger has a lot of crack-y elements, and Crack is both a somewhat ambiguous term and in my DNWs. If the show went there, so can you -- though I would prefer if things like the alternate universe where everyone is Henry are kept as throwaway jokes rather than being the setting of the story. I love most of what the show does, and I absolutely eat up all the lampshading ("The rules of time travel change every time we do it, dude!"), but I prefer when the weird-for-the-sake-of-being-weird jokes are not the focus.
Completely Optional Crossover Prompt
Ships:
Henry/Charlotte/Jasper
Kid Danger/Kyle
Henry/OFC
NoTP: Henry/Ray
My Secret Identity
Requests: Andrew Clements & Kirk Stevens
One of the things I really liked about MSI was that the show was a real world/real high school setting. Andrew had powers, but there was no reason for the powers: no super villains, no prophecy, no great mission. Andrew so desperately wanted to be a superhero, and all he could really manage to be was an awkward teenager with teenage issues and the ability to float, run really fast, and be strong (which were just as often the problem as they were the solution). The police weren’t clamoring for his help, he didn’t masquerade as a vigilante (nor did it go very well when he tried), and the newspapers and public had no knowledge that a superhero lived among them. There’s a great metaphor in all this about the person we are inside and the person we’re allowed to show to others.
Another thing I really liked was how much Andrew fanboyed his own powers. While Ultraman was only mentioned in the first season, I loved that the character even existed. Andrew delighted in being able to do what he could do, and who could blame him? (Well, Dr. J could and did, but that’s beside the point.) Though Andrew did eventually mature a little and calm down (and what did happen to his comic book collection?), I don’t think he ever truly lost the wonder.
Andrew and Kirk are an interesting relationship because they're old friends who don't know much about each other. I think about who I was at 7 and who I was at 16 and how many friendships fell away for good reasons in the intervening years, and it really makes me wonder what makes this friendship tick and why both guys assumed their friendship should just pick up where it left off.
Optional Promots:
All canon characters are welcome to help populate your story, as are OCs who fit the world.
Superman & Lois
Requests: Jordan & Jonathan Kent
Ahh, my summer romance. I fell hard into this show this summer after managing to barely notice its existence for almost two years. What can I say? They gave me a coming of age story with superpowers set in a family drama, then proceeded to whump the hell out of the characters. ::sigh:: It's a predictable formula to my heart. Besides what's already mentioned, what I love most about this show is the twins and their relationship. They're so supportive of one another, and their bond is so strong, that even when they're on the outs, they will still drop everything to come to the other's aid. All I really want here is stories of the two of them getting into and out of trouble. But I love the rest of the family, too, and the Cushings (especially Sarah and Kyle), so feel free to rope any of them into the shenanigans.
While I am not on Team Give Jon Powers, I'm completely open to Jon getting to experience temporary powers via something like a bodyswap scenario or a Kryptonite mishap. The DNW in my sign-up is in regards to Jon developing permanent powers or abilities.
Optional Prompts
Ships:
Canon ships are great, as is Jon/OMC or Jon/OFC.
Completely Optional Crossover Prompt
The Tomorrow People (2013)
Worldbuilding
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.
Optional Prompt
An "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? How does one go about proving that they used to have superpowers? Are there any long-term health consequences to having one's powers removed? Do people who used to be TP regain their ability to kill after their powers are removed?
All canon characters or OCs who fit the world are welcome in your story.
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
If you're reading this letter with an eye toward treats and wish I'd requested any of the other Tomorrow People versions instead, no worries! I will never turn down stories about those shows.
I very much look forward to what you're going to write. Thank you for signing up!
