sailor | (no subject)

dear yuletide author,

first and most importantly, thank you so much for writing for me!! this is only my second year doing yuletide, though i've lurked for much longer. i had an absolute blast last year — i received two wonderful fics, rockin' around the christmas bus (parks & recreation) and drive (breaking bad) and couldn't have been happier with them. in turn, i wrote & someone's got to fall before someone goes free (aka five good things that happened to jesse pinkman, breaking bad) which was super fun. i can't wait to get on with it this year and i hope you're excited too!!

in general, i'm not picky at all and am super easy to please, so no need to stress over anything. i am much happier to read a story that you wanted to write and enjoyed writing than giving stringent guidelines and dos and don'ts!! i'm mainly doing this to hopefully provide a little more direction than my "SERIOUSLY I'LL LIKE ANYTHING" descriptions on ao3 can, because while that is very true, i know that the totally vague nature of that can be frustrating for some people. so i hope this is helpful!

1. nova
requested characters: sam alexander, eva alexander, kaelynn alexander, uatu (the watcher)

god, i love nova.

i've kind of really fallen ass-backwards into comics hell in 2014. any of my friends foolishly reading this are nodding along like yes cbran it was a swift and terrifying descent. nova was one that i picked up entirely on a whim — i wanted to figure out how to write sam alexander for my own little project and was like okay, i'll skim this. AND I ENDED UP FALLING TOTALLY IN LOVE. i just find sam's character so charming; i have a soft spot for hot-headed dumbasses who try their best but don't always succeed. i love that he is undoubtedly good at what he does, but he still struggles with how exactly to be a teenage superhero and screws up his fair share. i love his dynamic with his family and with the watcher (although i am caught up on the current run so i know how that ends, and yes i may have teared up). i love his conflicted feelings about his dad and his newfound unwavering resolve to find him again. I LOVE SAM ALEXANDER SO MUCH. so i would really love and adore anything nova-related, but here are a few specifics to maybe inspire you:

mentor/mentee relationships are my JAM, and while sam and the watcher don't fit into this category perfectly, they are close enough to it for me to love their dynamic endlessly. i know it's probably hard to explore more of their relationship considering uatu doesn't talk (and also, he is dead now) but man, would i ever love something about it. i just love that the watcher was the first one to believe in him and help him, and that sam came to him with all his whining and questions. and he called him his friend!! ahh, my heart.

i think sam has one of the more realistic family lives as far as teen heroes go, and i really enjoy his struggle in keeping a good work/life balance going. if you are into gen family stuff, good news: so am i!! anything exploring sam's relationship with his mom and little sister, how he tempers outerspace heroics with trying to help out his family back on earth, would be lovely and perfect to me. maybe kaelynn eventually gets to try on the nova helmet again too? who knows!!

and finally, GOD I LOVE EVERYBODY THAT SAM RUNS UP AGAINST. beta ray bill, rocket and gamora, the avengers, robbie and vance — all of it, i love all of it so much. if you want to write in any of the nova side characters that aren't listed in the tags, that is more than okay with me! i admit to being a huge iron man fan so sam's brief interactions with tony have been my favorite out of all of these. anything exploring his relationships with the other marvel characters he's run up against (and even ones he hasn't — i am basically down for him crossing over with anybody) is more than a-okay in my book!!

in the end i just really, really love sam and will fawn over anything you write about him, guaranteed.

2. dead poets society
requested characters: charlie dalton, neil perry, knox overstreet

TRUE LIFE: I AM TWENTY-FOUR YEARS OLD AND STILL COMPLETELY IN LOVE WITH A MOVIE I FIRST SAW WHEN I WAS ELEVEN.

probably like most people, i saw dps for the first time in my sixth grade english class. i immediately became obsessed with it — i mean, obsessed to the point where i wore out the first vhs copy i received, then the first dvd version that came out, then began keeping backups of the dvd just in case i ever wear down another one. it's just my favorite movie of all time ever in a way i can never fully describe. especially in the wake of robin williams' death, i've tried over and over to verbalize why it means so much to me but failed every time. this article says it all better than i ever could.

SO NOW THAT YOU'RE LIKE "HAHA HOLY SHIT THIS WEIRDO" onto more pertinent matters!!

i'm always, always down for dps gen. i think that the world of welton offered to us is absolutely rife with potential for backstory for all the boys and all their relationships. there is no character i don't love and want to know more about, so if you are into gen, you can absolutely feel free to explore any characters and friendships you would like. i promise that i will enjoy it all.

charlie dalton is my favorite character in the film, so anything involving him will make my goddamn day times a million. i also included neil and knox, my always-tied-because-how-can-i-choose second favorites, because as far as shipping goes, i am super into both charlie/neil and charlie/knox. (or all three?? i have personally never seen that but boy am i ever down.) but for real, anything charlie: his home life, his relationship with the other boys, conversations he may have had with keating, his life post-series, god anything. tie in poetry somehow and you have my heart forever.

now that i think about it, looking for dps fic is actually how i found out about yuletide many years ago, and it's always the first fandom i look for when the fics go up. it's truly my favorite and i will feel so lucky if you write me something from it!!

3. saga
requested characters: any!

ahh, who doesn't love saga? if you are reading this because we got matched on another fandom and you haven't read saga, i honestly cannot recommend it enough to you! it's easily one of the best written comics currently running, if not the best, and the art is beyond gorgeous.

but okay, enough reccing. like i said in my request on ao3, the thing about saga is that i will love ANYTHING for it. (are we seeing a pattern here?? sob sorry i am so easy.) i have favorites (prince robot iv, the will, upsher & doff) but you are welcome to write any and all of the wonderful characters bkv and fiona staples have brought to life. there is nobody i would not love to see expanded upon.

i will say that prince robot iv is absolutely my fave to end all faves in saga. and there is (to my knowledge at least) no fic of him!! if you feel inspired to write a prince robot iv character piece, my god, i will fall down and die.

but for real: absolutely anything, absolutely everything. to hopefully give some direction, some general tropes/devices i really enjoy are found families (which i feel saga is ripe with opportunities for!), reunions, 5+1s, rivals becoming friends, epic betrayals, i will add more things here as i think of them. i am not super into smut? like i don't have anything against it, but it isn't something i would generally ask for. but gosh, aside from that, really anything involving anyone. backstory on upsher and doff's relationship? hell yeah. stories izabel told hazel growing up? hell yeah. the will and the stalk's tumultuous relationship? hell yeah. the will and the brand's undoubtedly weird family life? hell yeah. filling in the gaps of marko and alana's courtship? hell yeah. general world building, little bits and pieces of everybody floating around the universe, connected or not? hell yeah. ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING SAGA-RELATED? HELL YEAH.

4. avengers undercover
requested characters: cullen bloodstone, aiden

i have no idea why i put this request last when this series is #1 in my heart.

avengers arena/undercover is pretty divisive as far as marvel fans go, but i happened to LOVE IT. like, real pie-throwing love. undercover was the first series that i got to follow as it came to a close in real-time, so it will always have a special place in my heart. and i ended up growing to love the braddock kids that hopeless came up with, especially aiden and cullen.

good god they are a mess though. which is why i love them! i'm pretty into trainwreck relationships and theirs is no exception.

i would absolutely love anything exploring cullen and aiden, separately and together — their friendship at braddock, cullen's undoubtedly ridiculous inner pining, their falling out post-arena/pre-undercover, what happens to them post-undercover. i'm all in for aus here (and i've written my fair share myself!!) and invite you to go crazy. i guess my only stipulation is that i'm honestly not into a traditional happy fix-it ending for them — it's painfully clear throughout both series that aiden is definitely not into cullen like cullen is into him, and that's what i like about their dynamic! they are best friends before and after all else, but it's a struggle because cullen is stupid in love with him. their dynamic is complicated and although they care for each other very much, i just don't see it working out in a happy ending where they get together. at least not as far as canon goes!! if you can au it where it works out BY GOD BE MY GUEST. but as far as canon-compliant stuff for them goes, i am more interested in explorations of their characters and relationship that grapple with the reality of the situation rather than the ideal end that only exists in cullen's head where they move to vermont and pick out china.

ANYWAY!! you are of course welcome to work in any other undercover characters — hazmat, cammi, chase and nico, i would be happy to see any and all of them!! (also cullen's sister elsa, but shh, you didn't hear that from me.) i love the complicated tangled web all the arena/undercover kids found themselves in, even though it uh ended with an inexplicably happy beach party. comics, man. who even knows.

and that about sums it up!! again, thank you so much. i can't wait to read what you write and inevitably gush all over it.

have a wonderful yuletide season!!

♥ cbran