Yuletide 2022 Letter

[isabrella]

I am isabrella at AO3 and isabrella on Tumblr too.
I would love to receive treats and have set it so I can receive treats - if there is any problems with that, let me know via the mods.
Also, I love drabbles! If you end up writing me a drabble, 1. I will love it forever and 2. you can tag it and add it to the Yuletide Madness Drabble Invitational collection, which is an optional mini-challenge!
I am also open to art treats as part of the Wrapping Paper Yuletide mini-challenge. Creating art is not something I am very good at, so I will be super impressed by any and all art! Please do observe my DNWs as far as they apply to art. :)
My prompts are obviously completely optional, if there are other things you can think of that you'd rather write, go for it! I'm sure I will love whatever you produce! These are just some specific scenarios that I've thought up, and I would love almost anything.
The number of prompts I've given also has no relationship to how much I would like to receive a gift - some canons are just longer or shorter, and some I've been prompting in exchanges for a few years now so have accumulated ideas!
Setting-changes AUs unless it's one that I've specifically requested (a little canon tweaking is fine); second person POV; death of main characters; gore; gender-swapping; non-canonical gender identities; fic about pregnancy or childbirth; fic about body image issues; smut (I'm happy for you to reference sex, fade to black, use a little bit of detail, but I would prefer that the fic not be porn-without-plot); requested characters in non-canonical M/F relationships (except for Mythic Quest).

• There Was Only One Bed.
• Fake Dating/Marriage.
• Found family.
• Hurt/comfort (ranging from illness to injury, everything is fine! I have no squicks about blood/vomit/etc.)
• Angst with a happy ending.
• When the author knows a lot about a specific subject and uses it to great effect in the fic (literary analysis, statistical analysis, feminist theory, ornithology, genetic engineering, etc.
• Emotional heart-to-hearts.
• In-character banter.
• Humourous dialogue.
• Exploring the ways that different characters show each other love.
• Exploration of complex character dynamics.
• Exploring characters' cultural/religious/familial history and connections.
• Exploring queer history and activism.
• I love love love interesting formats, like epistolary fiction, social media posts or interactions, PowerPoints, etc. so if that's something you're into please do lean into it!

Hollie Col; Julia Stevens.
Watch it here.

What is it?

A music video/short film series about two queer girls falling in love, set in the 1970s, and featuring Australian indie pop music.

What did I like about it?

Hollie Col is a particular musical love of mine, so that! The 70s aesthetics! (Although you can set it any time period you like between 1970 and now - I can't think too hard about when it's meant to be set lol: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is visible in the background of one scene, but they never have cellphones, the aesthetics are attempting 70s but veer into 90s sometimes, and a lot of the clothes are clearly Glassons circa 2017).

Prompts:

• What happens on their road trip?
• They take another road trip!
• Hollie visits Julia in New York.
• The angst of long-distance!
• Like with the other music video series, there's plenty of room to take it in whatever direction you desire! Fluff! Angst! Epistolary!
• For Yuletide, I would love to see any holiday or celebration-themed fics - whether that's Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule, New Years', Halloween, Lunar New Year, Pride Month, anything would make me super happy! For this canon being set in Australia, an Aussie Christmas or New Years is wildly different from a US Christmas so I'd love to see a contrast between them somehow. If your fic is focussed on a celebration in December/January, you can tag it "Season's Treatings", which is a Yuletide mini-challenge!

Drea Torres; Eleanor Levetan.

What is it?

A campy high school revenge movie about two girls who team up to "do each other's revenge". Surprisingly, shockingly, a good (even great) movie from Netflix. Featuring: Sarah Michelle Gellar!!!!!

What did I like about it?

The incredible soundtrack! This movie had me absolutely hooked from the second "For the Girls" started playing. I really like the complete and utter toxicity of this relationship and their potential for codependency so please lean into that hard (rather than making them actually healthy in any way lol).

Prompts:

• As far as I'm concerned, the Gabbi and Russ endscenes are not canon (although I'm perfectly fine with you keeping them in so that Drea can break Eleanor and Gabbi up or vice versa).
• I do definitely see a toxic romantic/sexual relationship between Drea and Eleanor, but if you don't vibe with that, I am definitely cool with them being toxic codependent best friends too.
• They go to college together and create toxic dramas featuring a lot of sexual tension.
• Riff on the plot of any other iconic teen movie that Do Revenge references.
• Eleanor and Drea team up as a for-hire revenge team for wronged women. This would be fun as case-fic or just the process of them setting it up together.
• Deleted scenes from the movie (they definitely got high on Carissa's shrooms more than once)
• Anything about the movie from Eleanor's POV.
• Drea and Eleanor running some kind of fake dating/marriage scam would really push my buttons (in a good way).
• For Yuletide, I would love to see any holiday or celebration-themed fics - whether that's Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule, New Years', Halloween, Lunar New Year, Pride Month, anything would make me super happy! For this canon, I'd love to see Drea and Eleanor using gifts at Christmastime to manipulate each other, or Eleanor taking an extravagant holiday and bringing Drea along. If your fic is focussed on a celebration in December/January, you can tag it "Season's Treatings", which is a Yuletide mini-challenge!

Zolita's character; Gia's character.
Watch it here.

What is it?

A music video trilogy about a cheerleader and an art nerd who get together but have to break up for college, then reunite post-college when the cheerleader is a musician and the art nerd is a successful photographer. Super cute and aesthetically pleasing! A lot of dramatic cheerleader/goth aesthetics, prom scenes, etc.

What did I like about it?

The campy high school aesthetic.
I love the whole referential vibes of music videos - notes to But I'm a Cheerleader, You Belong with Me, etc.
The aesthetic is just *chefs kiss*.
Also it's just super sweet and short and fun to watch!

Prompts:

• There's plenty of potential for angst in the period of separation (but definitely keen on angst with a happy ending).
• I love the dyke drama coverage of Zolita's break ups, so anything like a fic formatted through newspaper or blog following the dyke drama of her and Gia getting together would be very up my alley.
• Really, there is space to take this in any direction you like (high school/first love shenanigans! Angst! Fluff! Celebrity gossip mag!)
• Post-canon, how do they work together? Touring? Photography shoots? Etc.
• For Yuletide, I would love to see any holiday or celebration-themed fics - whether that's Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule, New Years', Halloween, Lunar New Year, Pride Month, anything would make me super happy! For this canon, I'd love to see Zolita and Gia working on holiday-themed music and photography shoots, meeting each others' families, etc. If your fic is focussed on a celebration in December/January, you can tag it "Season's Treatings", which is a Yuletide mini-challenge!

Poppy Li, Ian Grimm.
Poppy IS my blorbo! She's awkward, smart, insecure, definitely-not-maybe obsessed with Ian…? I'm happy for you to write a fic about Poppy and Ian or just focus on Poppy.

Prompts:

• I'm happy for you to explore any aspect of Poppy's sexuality - I definitely think she and Ian are building up to something, but maybe she's bisexual or queer and explores that with another woman?
• I love the setting of the show, so please do feel free to work in as many workplace shenanigans as you like!
• I particularly enjoy Poppy and Ian's mildly toxic codependent vibe so if you wish, please go hard on that (in a romantic, sexual, or platonic way as you desire!).
• I would love to see Poppy having her feminist awakening and realising that she doesn't have to tear down other women AND that she can develop her own leadership style that isn't berating and masculine or capitulating (how true to character is this? Not very I suspect but that's okay!!).
• For Yuletide, I would love to see any holiday or celebration-themed fics - whether that's Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule, New Years', Halloween, Lunar New Year, Pride Month, anything would make me super happy! For Poppy especially, an Aussie Christmas or New Years is wildly different from a US Christmas so I'd love to see her contrasting them somehow. If your fic is focussed on a celebration in December/January, you can tag it "Season's Treatings", which is a Yuletide mini-challenge!

Lisa Atwood; Carole Hanson; Stevie Lake
These books and TV show were such a special part of my childhood so I thought I would throw this into the mix. Here are some prompts. You could go romantic for some of them, but platonic is also amazing. I'm happy for you to focus more on a friendship or a romantic relationship between just two of them, but all three is also great!

Prompts:

• They go to college apart from each other and stay in contact via emails, letters, phone calls, and visiting their families (and friends like Kate) during the breaks.
• The three of them begin to grow into teachers/leaders at Pine Hollow (as 16-18-year-olds). They coach younger riders, judge competitions/gymkhanas, run riding camps for Max, etc. (Just pretend the Pine Hollow books don't exist).
• Lisa comes out to her mom and is kicked out so she moves in with one of the others.
• Lisa really liked New York, so it would be cool to see a future fic where they are all going off to college or other adult life plans and maybe Lisa goes to college in New York (#8 Horse Show).
• A pair of them or all three of them spend Valentine's/Galentine's Day together doing stupid stuff (if romantic: eventually they realise that they are into each other).
• For Yuletide, I would love to see any holiday or celebration-themed fics - whether that's Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule, New Years', Halloween, Lunar New Year, Pride Month, anything would make me super happy! For this canon especially, there were plenty of sweet holiday shenanigans in the books, so more like that - trick or treating, the Starlight Ride, visiting honorary members, designing an overnight trail ride or mystery activity - how the girls maybe start organising those things themselves as they get older. If your fic is focussed on a celebration in December/January, you can tag it "Season's Treatings", which is a Yuletide mini-challenge!
• As is probably obvious from my sign-up as a whole, I love reading queerness into canons that were not explicitly queer, especially ones from my childhood. If you end up writing a story featuring any of these characters as queer, you can tag it "Queering the Tide", which is a Yuletide mini-challenge!

Claudia Kishi; Dawn Schafer; Kristy Thomas; Mary-Anne Spier.
Like the Saddle Club, the Baby-Sitters Club books were a very special part of my childhood as an avid reader. I have enjoyed reading both Paperback Crush by Gabrielle Moss and We Are the Baby-Sitters Club edited by Marisa Crawford and Megan Milks, which delve into the culture of 80s/90s girl's books - if you've also read those, feel free to use any quotes or anything that particularly stood out to you because I really enjoyed them. I reread some of the actual Baby-sitters Club books this year, but not all of them, so if you want to include references to the books that would be cool but I may not pick up on all of them.
I'm happy with any combo of the characters nominated, individual character studies, or whole-club antics. I'm happy for you to include Stacey as a main character!

Prompts:

• Mary-Anne and Claudia bond over talking about Mimi and Mary-Anne's mom.
• Claudia realises she has a crush on Ashley and talks it over with another member of the BSC. Dawn is canonically queer, so maybe she goes to Dawn.
• Janine and Claudia bond and find some common ground after Mimi's death. Maybe Janine teaches Claudia some Japanese.
• Anything where any of them are bonding with their parents I love, because all of them have such varied and (largely) healthy relationships with their parents. I especially love Mary-Anne and Dawn bonding with Richard and Sharon as a family unit!
• For this canon particularly I would love things that are a little out of left field, like epistolary stuff. Maybe they all have to write an essay on what feminism means to them for class? Or they write their college admissions essays all with different takes on what the Baby-Sitters Club taught them?
• What happened to the picture book collaboration between Claudia and Mallory? Would love to see that explored more. If you are also arty, you could even do a snippet from the actual book!
• They do some classic 90s girl activities, like making zines, or magazine quizzes, etc.
• There was a bit of a theme in the books of Mary-Anne being obssessed with Stacey because she was so cool and from New York, so I would love to see Stacey maybe taking Mary-Anne (and maybe even Mallory) to a Broadway show or something. (Twisting canon's arm a little bit, I think Mary-Anne could definitely have a crush on Stacey).
• They all go ice-skating together. Stacey is already good at it, and the others are varying degrees of learning. Hilarity ensues.
• Kristy realises she's gay (maybe for someone on her soccer team or maybe for Stacey). I don't see Kristy being attracted to Mary-Anne as they are too sisterly.
• I also love stories where they are older, either in high school, college, or post-college phases and reconnecting or continuing friendships, the Club, etc.
• For Yuletide, I would love to see any holiday or celebration-themed fics - whether that's Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule, New Years', Halloween, Lunar New Year, Pride Month, anything would make me super happy! Anything goes for this - trick or treating, gift exchanges, exploring each characters' relationship to their religion or spirituality, age-appropriate New Years' shenanigans! If your fic is focussed on a celebration in December/January, you can tag it "Season's Treatings", which is a Yuletide mini-challenge!
• As is probably obvious from my sign-up as a whole, I love reading queerness into canons that were not explicitly queer, especially ones from my childhood. If you end up writing a story featuring any of these characters as queer, you can tag it "Queering the Tide", which is a Yuletide mini-challenge!

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