obstinatecondolement | Entries tagged with letter: dear vidder

Dear Festividder,

Hi! I'm obstinatecondolement, or SweetPollyOliver on AO3. It's that wonderful time again! Thank you so much for offering one of my requested fandoms.

I'm pretty easy to please, so please do feel free to take as little or as much guidance from anything I've written here as is helpful, and I'm more than happy to be surprised.

General vid and music related likes

Humourous lyrics or ironic pairings of clips with lyrics for a humorous effect
Character study vids
Ensemble vids
Uptempo vids with lots of quick cuts on the beat and a sense of movement
But also: slower, contemplative vids with long clips
Vids with a strong narrative/emotional arc
Music specific likes:
- Disco, Soul, 60s/70s R&B e.g. Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, The Jackson 5, Smokey Robinson, The Bee Gees, Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Boney M., Earth Wind & Fire, Chaka Khan and the Village People
- Rock and pop from the 1960s-1980s, e.g. The Mamas & the Papas, Janis Joplin, Neil Young, Cher, The Turtles, The Beach Boys, Fleetwood Mac, David Bowie, ABBA and Queen
- Contemporary pop, e.g. Carly Rae Jepsen, Ke$ha, Lady Gaga, Mitski, Hayley Kiyoko, Marina (& the Diamonds), Florence + the Machine
- Contemporary hip hop and R&B, e.g. Lizzo, Megan Thee Stallion, Doja Cat, Rihanna, Shea Couleé and Janelle Monáe
- Pop folk, e.g. Simon & Garfunkel, Sufjan Stevens, Belle and Sebastian, Mumford & Sons and Joni Mitchell
- Vocal jazz, especially Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone and Chet Baker. I mostly listen to stuff from the 1930s-1960s, but I'd be thrilled to get something set to more contemporary jazz or jazz fusion too.
- Great American Songbook singers, i.e. anyone known for singing things composed by Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, Hoagy Carmichael, Rodgers & Hammerstein, etc. but especially Judy Garland
- Musical theatre e.g. Patti Lupone, Audra McDonald, Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel
- Country, e.g. Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Trixie Mattel, Skeeter Davis, Loretta Lyn, Woody Guthrie, Willie Nelson, Shania Twain, Norah Jones, Lil Nas X, Sheryl Crow and Miley Cyrus

Other notes regarding vid preferences

There aren't any genres of music that I actively dislike and if you get the vibe that I would like something based on the things I have listed above, and it's not a DNW, then you're probably right. I often enjoy vids set to covers of well-known songs, so that would be really cool. I don't listen to a huge amount of instrumental music, but I do enjoy it! Also feel free to vid something to a non-music audio source, such as poetry. I also don't mind dialogue in vids, but I prefer that it's over instrumental sections of the music with no lyrics, that there is no audible music from the source's score, and that the volume of the song the vid is set to is adjusted so that the dialogue isn't fighting with it.

DNWs

Vids set to music by Michael Bublé or Taylor Swift
Footage of rats
Sustained strobing or flashing throughout the vid

Requested fandoms

Porridge (1974)

I've been on a big Porridge kick for about a year now. I love how it marries silly sit-com antics with things that are genuinely deeply tragic if you think about them even a little and the shows unrelenting scepticism of The System and its refusal to concede that the character are not playing a rigged game. I do also consider it to be the deeply touching story of a 23 year old first offender and his mission to fuck his middle aged cellmate, but you do not have to indulge me on this and I'd be more than happy with a gen vid. A character study or an ensemble vid could both work really well, and you could go funny or serious to equally great effect. Or both!

Watership Down (Animated Film 1978)

I have loved this movie my whole life. The animation style is so beautiful and the characters are all so distinct and interesting. I love how weird and offputting Fiver can be, and there's something about a rabbit that's psychic that just really seems right. Hazel as the capable but unglamorous leader, Bigwig as the disgruntled but deeply loyal heavy, Blackberry's cleverness, all of the Watership Down rabbits who I could go on about for paragraph upon paragraph. And Kehaar! Beautiful Kehaar with his loyalty to the "stupid bunnies" who saved him and how he is so foreign to them but still a firm friend of the warren. And, oh my god, Hyzenthlay, my best friend Hyzenthlay. I love her and how she stands up to Woundwart, but in a very measured and political way that doesn't come off like a shallow attempt to write a girlboss. I also love how she is almost the midpoint between Hazel with his calm leadership and Fiver with his visions. I also really love her relationship with Bigwig and how they work together to organise the escape from Efrafa.

I also just really love the worldbuilding in this movie and how lapine religion and mythology is so deeply real and present in-universe. It captures how precarious and brutal the lives of these prey animals are, but in a way that really centres how they see both the world and themselves. They are at the mercy of strange and unfathomable forces, but they are the heroes and they never give up. All the world will be your enemy, prince of a thousand enemies, and if they catch you, they will kill you. But first, they must catch you!

Supacell (TV 2024)

This show was such a surprise to me and I wholeheartedly recommend watching it if you haven't already, even if you're planning on vidding one of my other recommendations, if only because I want more people to talk to about it, haha. The worldbuilding is so cleverly conceived and the characters are all so grounded and real in a setting with superpowers and sinister hooded figures acting as bounty hunters for mysterious evil organisations.

I love all of the main characters and the ways they clash and contrast, and their ties to friends and family outside of each other—Sabrina's sister Sharleen, Tazer's grandmother and the other Tower Boys, Michael's fiancee Dionne, Andre's son AJ, Rodney's friend Spud—being what ultimately leads them to work with each other. Some kind of ensemble vid would be amazing, but you could zoom in on one character, or on one relationship, and that would also be so effective.

The Tick (2016)

So, fun fact, this is the fandom that got me to start vidding, haha. I was trying to put a playlist together and it wasn't going anywhere but I knew that I wanted to do Something with one song in particular, so I decided to give vidding a go on an impulse. Needless to say, I am very fond of this fandom

I really love how earnest the show is, despite it being comedic. It's so refreshing, even eight years after it came out, to see a superhero show that isn't cringingly embarrassed that it's a superhero show.

I love Arthur's arc and the way the show deals with mental illness and trauma, and I also really love his relationship with the Tick. Dot is such a deep well of characterisation and I think her season two plotline where she comes into her own after spending most of her life trying to look after Arthur is amazing. Overkill is also fantastic and I love how his gritty antihero shtick is undercut and clowned on several times, but his trauma never is even when elements of it are presented comedically (YMMV, though, I suppose). I also find his relationship with Dot very compelling. I think there's so many ways you could do a vid for this fandom: it could be campy and silly, it could be sad, it could be around a theme like loss, or heroism, or it could be focused more on a single character study, or a relationship, or relationship(s). There's a lot of scope!

The Tick [Umbrella]

It's really interesting to me how unique The Tick is as a superhero franchise in that all its different iterations, which are all so different in tone, have had the creator Ben Edlund at the wheel. It can be gritty or cartoony, cynical or sincere, adult or kid-friendly, but it's all still Ben Edlund's The Tick. I think that it is a fascinating lens to look at where the superhero genre was at at the time of each adaptation—what was being satirised and what did that reflect? There is also something interesting to me about how the Tick himself is kind of a mystery. He's not a Superman or a Batman type figure with a coherent origin story or a secret identity, he exists in each story to be The Tick.

Some Like it Hot (1959)

I'm so deeply in love with this movie. I probably know it word for word, shot for shot, but I still laugh at all the jokes and scream at all the same things every time I see it. I love how it's both silly and zany but also quite sweet and sensitive. I also do absolutely read it as a trans movie. As my youngest sibling recently said of Daphne, "Transition did save her. From the mob, but also in general."

Singin' in the Rain (1952)

This movie is both another all time personal favourite, but one I think is incredibly viddable with all its gorgeous dance numbers and fun facial expressions to cut to. I really love that it's a movie about movies (and a musical about musicals). Maybe it's growing up on The Muppet Show, but any kind of story with an on-stage and off-stage element to it really speaks to me. I think that basically any of the characters would be so fun to centre a vid around, but something shippy (Kathy/Don, Kathy/Don/Cosmo, Don/Cosmo, onesided Don/Lina, the list goes on), or something with the whole ensemble, or something about putting together a movie/showbusiness, etc., would all work really well

Star Trek: Lower Decks

I am so enraptured with Lower Decks. I love how it is so fond of the franchise and respects it so much while still being very silly and both more overtly comedic and horny on main (this is a family show, Gene!) than its predecessors. The characters might be 2D animated, but they are never flat and, again, the comedic tone of the show never robs any of them of being more than just funny. In particular, I love how Beckett tries to rougish and devil-may-care, but she cares so much, and her arc relating to her relationship to the institution of Starfleet and its ideals. This is another one where you could go in so many different directions and tones and all of them would work really well. You could do something funny, something serious, something that's both, a character study, something around a theme, an ensemble vid.

Dear vidder,

Hi! I'm obstinatecondolement, or SweetPollyOliver on AO3. Thank you so much for offering one of the fandoms I've requested! I can't wait to see what you make :D

Apologies for being a bit slow off the mark in posting my letter! I obviously am not going to expect you to have seen this when it was still a placeholder when the assignments went out, so while I have some DNWs listed below, I understand that it's more of a suggestion than anything.

Also, please feel free to take as little or as much guidance from anything I've written here, and I'm more than happy to be surprised. I have not picked specific characters or relationships for any of the fandoms I've requested in my sign up, and I'd love for you to go with whatever approach that appeals most to your creative impulses if something really grabs you, whether it's something I've mentioned here or not.

General vid and music related likes

Humourous lyrics or ironic pairings of clips with lyrics for a humorous effect
Character study vids
Ensemble vids
Uptempo vids with lots of quick cuts on the beat and a sense of movement
But also: slower, contemplative vids with long clips
Vids with a strong narrative/emotional arc
Music specific likes:
- Vocal jazz, especially Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone and Chet Baker (my token white man in this category, lol). I mostly listen to stuff from the 1930s-1960s, but I'd be thrilled to get something set to more contemporary jazz too
- Great American Songbook singers, i.e. anyone known for singing things composed by Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, Hoagy Carmichael, Rodgers & Hammerstein, etc. but especially Judy Garland
- Motown, e.g. Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, The Jackson 5 and Smokey Robinson
- Disco, e.g. The Bee Gees, Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Boney M., Earth Wind & Fire, Chaka Khan and the Village People
- Rock and pop from the 1960s-1980s, e.g. The Mamas & the Papas, Janis Joplin, Neil Young, Cher, The Turtles, The Beach Boys, Fleetwood Mac, David Bowie, ABBA and Queen
- Contemporary pop, e.g. Carly Rae Jepsen, Ke$ha, Lady Gaga, Mitski, Hayley Kiyoko, Marina (& the Diamonds), Florence + the Machine
- Contemporary hip hop and R&B, e.g. Lizzo, Megan Thee Stallion, Doja Cat, Rihanna, Shea Couleé and Janelle Monáe
- Pop folk, e.g. Simon & Garfunkel, Sufjan Stevens, Belle and Sebastian, Mumford & Sons and Joni Mitchell
- Musical theatre e.g. Patti Lupone, Audra McDonald, Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel
- Country, e.g. Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Trixie Mattel, Skeeter Davis, Loretta Lyn, Woody Guthrie, Willie Nelson, Shania Twain, Norah Jones, Lil Nas X, Sheryl Crow and Miley Cyrus

Other notes regarding vid preferences

There aren't any genres of music that I actively dislike and if you get the vibe that I would like something based on the things I have listed above, and it's not a DNW, then you're probably right. I often enjoy vids set to covers of well-known songs, so that would be really cool. I don't listen to a huge amount of instrumental music, but I do enjoy it! Also feel free to vid something to a non-music audio source, such as poetry. I don't have strong opinions about talky face, so unless it's something you personally prefer to avoid then don't worry about it on my account. I also don't mind dialogue in vids, but I prefer that it's over instrumental sections of the music with no lyrics, that there is no audible music from the source's score, and that the volume of the song the vid is set to is adjusted so that the dialogue isn't fighting with it.

DNWs

Vids set to music by Michael Bublé or Taylor Swift
Footage of rats
Strobing or sudden bright lights

Requested fandoms

Dogma (1999)

I was obsessed with this movie when I was an edgy 13 year old with an ambivalent relationship to religion and I retain a lot of fondness for it. I didn't select any characters or relationships in particular and I'd be very happy for you to go in whatever direction you wanted with this, whether it was more focused on Bethany and her journey (including her canonical death and resurrection), or Rufus, or Loki and/or Bartleby's lives/deaths and relationship to God or wanting an end to their punishment, or Azrael's slant on that for that matter!

Interview with the Vampire (TV 2022)

This show has me deep in its clutches currently. I feel like you could go in so many different directions for the theme with this one and they'd all be great. Whether you went with a more literal interpretation and did a character study of one of the undead characters, or an ensemble vid about vampiric existence, or if you wanted to go with something along the lines of the "after life" of Lestat as a hallucination after Claudia and Louis "kill" him, or Daniel's near-death and then life after he met Louis and Armand in San Francisco.

I would also love to see a Claudia character study vid because the way she's frozen in puberty and alienated from the living and the dead alike is endlessly compelling and tragic to me in ways I cannot get enough of.

The one thing I'd mention as a "probably not" here is that I'm not a fan of Armand (I don't dislike him, I just don't find him very compelling), so a solo-Armand vid might not be the best use of your time and effort.

The Umbrella Academy

This is another great fit for the theme and I think there's a lot of different angles you could take on it. Either Klaus and his relationship to death/the dead/dying, Ben and his post-death existence as a ghost, Number Five who saw the whole world die and who was dead to his family for years, any and all of the Umbrella Academy and their lives after various deaths/losses.

Ghosts (TV 2019)

I'd love to see something for this fandom! You could do almost anything here and have it be on-theme, given that the majority of the main cast are ghosts, but I think that something specifically about Allison, who died and can now see ghosts, would be interesting, or about Robin remaining for so many thousands of years after he died and growing so accustomed to loss that it makes him seem even more inhuman to the others than not being a modern homo sapien does, or the Captain growing to accept himself in death where he couldn't in life. Or, y'know, something fun and silly! Don't feel obligated to do something maudlin by any means, I mentioned those examples mainly just to give you some options in case you wanted scope beyond silly and funny.

Ghosts (US TV 2021)

I know some people have a very firm preference re: the UK or US versions of Ghosts, but I feel that both do different things very well. The US show is a lot more sentimental and less cynical and it develops the characters more as opposed to having them mostly static as they were at the moment of death, and I think there is a lot of value in both approaches. Given that the US show does emphasise character growth for the ghosts, something about being able to do things in death that you couldn't in life, or learning and growing in ways that you could't when you were alive would be very interesting. I do ship Trevor/Hettie and I would never say no to something along those lines, but it's not essential. I'm not hugely shippy about Isaac/Nigel, so I'd prefer not to have something that was mainly about their relationship, but including shippy Isaac/Nigel elements in a vid more broadly about Isaac, or about him accepting his sexuality, or in an ensemble vid, etc., would be more than fine. Again, I don't dislike the ship, I just don't find it particularly compelling on its own merits.

Bill & Ted (Movies)

The boys! Bill S. Preston Esq. and Ted Theodore Logan, my beloveds. I don't think there is anything you could do with this franchise in a vid that I wouldn't be on the edge of my seat to watch. I love all three iterations in the trilogy and whether you went with something more literal along the lines of their canonical deaths and resurrections or something more thinky about the future in the Bill & Ted universe, or their wives' lives hundreds of years after they would have died otherwise, or the lives of historical figures seeing the future (which includes Bill and Ted themselves in the context of the movies), anything would be fantastic.

The Mummy (Movies 1999-2008)

I'm a millennial bisexual, so it's basically mandatory for me to be obsessed with these movies. I think that there is so much scope for things on both the silly and the serious ends of the spectrum that would be on theme for the challenge (bonus points if you could hit both extremes in the one vid, like the movie itself does). I think that there's something to be teased out in the implicit cloud WWI throws over several of the characters and their attitudes to life and death, but I'm not sure how the best way to get that across in a vid would be.

ダンジョン飯 | Dungeon Meshi | Delicious in Dungeon

I am an anime-only fan, so I don't know what's coming down the line beyond what has been adapted so far, but I love this story so much! I love how much of a focus there is on environmentalism and the importance of both good food and a good relationship to food and living/persisting. Death and life are so intertwined in the show from the larger stakes with resurrecting Falin, but it exists in the smaller stakes of killing to eat and death feeding life. I am also intrigued by Marcille's anxieties about outliving her friends, which I suspect also inform the Mad Mage's motivations. I'm very pro-her using forbidden magic to resurrect her gf, but I'm also deeply compelled at the idea of how a desire to preserve life can potentially be perverted.

Dear Festividder,

Hi! I'm SweetPollyOliver on AO3. Thank you so much for offering one of the fandoms I've requested! I can't wait to see what you make :D

General vid and music related likes

Humourous lyrics or ironic pairings of clips with lyrics for a humorous effect
Character study vids
Ensemble vids
Uptempo vids with lots of quick cuts on the beat and a sense of movement
But also: slower, contemplative vids with long clips
Vids with a strong narrative/emotional arc
Music specific likes:
- Vocal jazz, especially Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone and Chet Baker (my token white man in this category, lol). I mostly listen to stuff from the 1930s-1960s, but I'd be thrilled to get something set to more contemporary jazz too
- Great American Songbook singers, i.e. anyone known for singing things composed by Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, Hoagy Carmichael, Rodgers & Hammerstein, etc. but especially Judy Garland
- Motown, e.g. Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, The Jackson 5 and Smokey Robinson
- Disco, e.g. The Bee Gees, Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Boney M., Earth Wind & Fire, Chaka Khan and the Village People
- Rock and pop from the 1960s-1980s, e.g. The Mamas & the Papas, Janis Joplin, Neil Young, Cher, The Turtles, The Beach Boys, Fleetwood Mac, David Bowie, ABBA and Queen
- Contemporary pop, e.g. Carly Rae Jepsen, Ke$ha, Lady Gaga, Mitski, Hayley Kiyoko, Marina (& the Diamonds), Florence + the Machine
- Contemporary hip hop and R&B, e.g. Lizzo, Megan Thee Stallion, Doja Cat, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Shea Couleé and Janelle Monáe
- Pop folk, e.g. Simon & Garfunkel, Sufjan Stevens, Belle and Sebastian, Mumford & Sons and Joni Mitchell
- Musical theatre e.g. Patti Lupone, Audra McDonald, Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel
- Country, e.g. Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Trixie Mattel, Skeeter Davis, Loretta Lyn, Woody Guthrie, Willie Nelson, Shania Twain, Norah Jones, Lil Nas X, Sheryl Crow and Miley Cyrus

Other notes regarding vid preferences

There aren't any genres of music that I actively dislike and if you get the vibe that I would like something based on the things I have listed above, and it's not a DNW, then you're probably right. I don't listen to a huge amount of instrumental music, but I do enjoy it! Also feel free to vid something to a non-music audio source, such as poetry. I don't have strong opinions about talky face, so unless it's something you personally prefer to avoid then don't worry about it on my account. I also don't mind dialogue in vids, but I prefer that it's over instrumental sections of the music with no lyrics, that there is no audible music from the source's score, and that the volume of the song the vid is set to is adjusted so that the dialogue isn't fighting with it.

DNWs

Vids set to music by Michael Bublé or Taylor Swift
On-screen suicide
Footage of rats
Strobing or sudden bright lights

Requested fandoms

Porridge (TV 1974)

I rewatched Porridge a little while ago for the first time in years and was suddenly and violently reminded of how much I shipped Fletch and Godber when I saw the show as a teenager, a thing which a dear friend, who shall remain nameless, said that it made "total sense" as a ship for me, presumably given my long documented weakness for pudgy middle aged con-men, and for pairing them with wide eyed younger and more innocent sidekicks who adore them. You do not have to come with me on the magical journey of shipping Ronnie Barker and Richard Beckinsale if that's not something that makes sense for you though, and I would be more than delighted with a gen vid.

Some specific ideas if that would be helpful

I think that the obvious route to go is to do something funny, possibly related to Fletch's many schemes, or his antagonistic relationship with Mr MacKay, or something about his relationship with Godber through either a canon-aligned gen lens or a shippy lens, or maybe a bigger ensemble vid about the inmates in Slade Prison managing to not let the bastards grind them down through various means. If you wanted to do something less lighthearted than the show itself usually was about incarceration that would also be cool to see.

When Harry Met Sally (1989) [SAFETY]

I have been completely obsessed with this movie since I was about twelve. I do not in any way co-sign the semi-implicit theme that men and women can never be friends, because the sex always gets in the way, but that's never spoiled the movie for me. I can totally buy that this man and woman can't just be friends. I just love Sally's fussy perfectionism and optimism and Harry's nihilistic cynicism and I don't see them as "you know what women/men are like!" archetypes at all, because they feel so much like real and individual people to me.

That said! (specific ideas and prompts)

You do not have to feature the romance centrally, or at all, if you'd prefer to focus on other elements of the movie, like a character study of one of them, or something about Sally's relationship with her friend Marie (played by the late great Carrie Fisher and who is amazing in this movie), possibly combining it with Harry's friendship with Jess, or Marie and Jess's romantic relationship, or Harry and Sally's friendship, or all of the above in a kind of metacommentary on the film's thesis that romantic and/or sexual attraction surpasses platonic love. I think that there are also so many beautiful visuals of New York in the movie that you could make use of if you wanted to do something about the city as a character in the movie.

Gattaca (1997) [SAFETY]

I'm always kind of surprised when people say that Gattaca has aged poorly in its takes about disability, because I kind of think it's spot on? It's a very powerful commentary on eugenics and ableism in my opinion, and things like Jerome/Eugene's internalised ableism regarding his paralysis and his anger with himself for not living up the expected potential of his genome is not co-signed by the movie itself as far as I can tell.

At any rate (ideas and prompts)

I think that you could pull on some interesting threads about ableism and meritocracy if you vidded this. I think it would probably be a more serious and somber vid, because while I do like humour the only way I could really see a way of incorporating it here if I were to do something myself is by picking something with bitterly ironic lyrics about not being good enough? I do also ship the hell out of Vincent/Jerome and Jerome/Eugene, so you're more than welcome to play with that dynamic if it interests you. I think that there's some fun identity fuckery things to tease out there and it would be very interesting to see that in a vid as opposed to a fic. I don't not ship the canon f/m ship though, so please don't feel like Irene is not welcome in the vid! Again, I think that while obviously the movie is about specific indivuals and how the eugenicist society they live in has affected them, it does also affect the whole of society, so an ensemble vid with multiple characters (possibly including the guy at the end who didn't blow Vincent/Jerome's cover because his own child would probably face workplace descrimination based on their genetics as he wasn't "all that they promised, but then who knows what he could do?")—maybe something that featured lines of dialogue from the movie? Although I think with the right song choice there are certainly the visuals to convey that kind of message. Something about Vincent's relationship with his brother, and family, would also be interesting, possibly as part of a character study. Just a note: please do not feature footage of the canonical suicide scene.

Willow (TV 2022)

The Willow movie from the 1980s is incredibly dear to me and I was really looking forward to this show for a long time (it kept getting pushed back, which made waiting feel agonizing and now... well. Anyway.) but it turned out to be everything I could ever have wanted from a sequel/reboot. Visually, it's so in keeping with the aesthetic of the movie, with the higher production values not implying a disrespect or reinvention of what came before. Also! The new characters are so, so amazing! The returning characters are also amazing and there isn't this kid-gloves treatment where they're afraid to present beloved characters as complex and flawed.

Prompts/ideas

I think that you could span the whole spectrum from a very straight epic fantasy vibe to something more irreverant and silly. The show handles both tones very well and either (or a combination of both) would be very in keeping with that. I think a contemporary choice of music would work well—maybe a cover of something from the 80s if you wanted to get meta with it? I love all the characters and an ensemble vid, or a character study of any of them, or a shippy vid with any of the canon relationships, or perhaps something about Elora and Kit's contentious relationship, which I am basically sitting there chewing through a chair leg about every time I see them on screen together. Some character specific angles I can think of is maybe a Kit vid about her relationship to her family and to the privileges and responsibilities of nobility, something about Jade's relationship to Galladorn, both before and after [SPOILERS REDACTED], a vid about Boorman being annoyed by the younger cast/Kit in particular and trying not to let on that he's warming up on them, something about Willow's arc from the movie to the show and the tragedy he's lived through and the weight of responsibility on him, or something about Graydon's relationship to magic and the guilt he lives with. There is a lot of scope in this fandom and I really don't thinkt here's a wrong move here, so if you have a different idea then by all means go for it!

Cagney & Lacey (TV 1981)

Full disclosure: I started watching this show primarily, some might say exclusively, for reasons of being thirsty for Martin Kove (and then very rapidly started being thirsty for Tyne Daly). However! It's so much more than that. It is, of course, a cop show, with all that that entails, but I think that, in many ways, it does a better job of portraying nuance and honesty about the failings of the police than a lot of more contemporary police procedurals? Your mileage may vary, of course. I certainly think that it holds up very well compared to its contemporaries in the genres at any rate though.

Prompts/ideas

I think that there's a lot of ways you could go on this! You could do something about gendered expectations of the 1980s (in the police force and more generally), you could do something about friendship, you could do something that was explicitly critical of the show's more overtly copaganda moments. Music-wise, I think something from the time period would work well, but that's not to say that something more modern, or something from an earlier time period, like something deeply sexist that came out when that sentiment was less controversial in the mainstream, along the lines of Wives and Lovers. In terms of the titular character themselves, I am deeply compelled by the contradictions and self interest of Cagney's politics, where sexism (against her) is very bad, but she's otherwise markedly conservative and status quo (and I think Republican? Oof, Christine...). I personally read her as I see her as a closeted (even to herself) lesbian and/or aromantic who has been very messed up by being raised by her socially conservative father. Something about her struggles with alcoholism would be very interesting, as would something about her stated feminism juxtaposed with her willingness to pull the ladder up behind herself and judge women who make choices she disapproves of, or come from backgrounds she is prejudiced against, or her partnership with Lacey, or her issues with maintaining romantic relationships, etc. For Lacey, I love her relationship with her husband and how unconventional it is for TV marriages of the time period, where he stayed at home with the boys for the first few seasons and does most of the cooking, etc. I also love how they are both such raging pinkos, because I think it would have been very easy for the show to be like "She is the married one who has kids, so therefore the conservative, as opposed to the sexually liberated single one with no dependents." Something about how she's in the era of "you can have it all!" and how demanding it actually is to try to have it all would be really great, as would something about her partnership with Cagney, or something about her politics (either juxtaposed against the background sexism of her workplace, against Cagney's politics, or against her own choice to join the police force). I am also, and I say this merely as a passaway thought that you do not have to pay much mind to, not at all opposed to shirtless footage of Martin Kove in the mix somewhere...

Steele Justice (1987) [SAFETY]

So uh... yeah. About how I'm violently in lust with Martin Kove? That was the one and only reason I watched this movie the first time and I wasn't expecting it to have any appeal other than beefcake, but... oh my god. I could not have been more wrong. This is an extremely bizarre, but amazing, action movie where Kove plays an ex-cop and Vietnam verteran John Steele whose former partner gets killed by an organised criminal gang (full disclosure: the former partner and the criminal organisation are both Vietnamese) and who he... okay, so the plot is kind of so hard to follow that I experience it every time as if for the first in some ways, but basically he gets frustrated with the bureaucracy and ineptitute of The Proper Authorities and wages a one-man vigilante war against the gang. Which... he seems to face absolutely no consequences for at the end of the movie, where he also steals a police car and drives off from his ex-boss who is trying to beg him to come back to the police force. It is The movie of all time and not just because Martin Kove is at his most beautiful and objectifiable. With some caveats*, I highly recommend that you watch it and experience it in all it's baffling majesty!

Prompts/ideas

So, look, I would admire you a lot if you managed to full of a serious vid for this movie, but I think that going broad and silly is a very viable option that would be much easier. You can also go ham on the beefcake, because I'm absolutely here for it. Steele also has this incredibly homoerotic vibe with his ex-partner (who is essentially his fridged wife?) whose wive seemed absolutely fine with it and whose daughter he is implied to adopt, so if you could get enough footage for something that frames that relationship as explicitly romantic and you wanted to go for that, please feel more than welcome to!

*the way it tries to have it both ways on how it treats Vietanese people, the authoritarian/vengence-as-justice/not technically copaganda but only because the movie things they need to be WORSE, the seemingly adult woman playing a teenager/ten year old from the childish voice and mannerisms the actor uses, the giant honking confederate flag in a bar at the beginning of the movie, etc., etc.

The Tick (TV 2017)

I am madly in love with this show. It is so silly and while it is occasionally winking at the camera, it is deeply and earnestly sincere and is never embarrassed about being a superhero show in the way a lot of modern superhero comic adaptations seem to be.

Prompts and ideas

I like all of the characters and something about any of them and any of their relationships would be welcome (with the exception of Arthur/Danger Boat where Arthur reciprocates DB's feelings, because I am not always super comfortable with the way DB harasses Arthur being played for laughs, even if he is a boat with a sentient AI). I really love Arthur and Dot's sibling relationship where they sometimes almost resent each other and can try to restrict each other's agency in the name of protecting them, but they love each other so deeply. I also am always here for Dot and Overkill's relationship, either played as romantic or platonic, and I love how Dot's arc from season one to two and the part that Overkill played in it. I also love, love, love The Tick and his big blue heart. Gotta love a superhero with amnesia who is not really torn up about it, because he's just happy to be here. I do ship him and Arthur, but as with all the shippy things I've mentioned in this letter, that's definitely an optional extra. In terms of tone, I think that it's one where you can have high highs and low lows and you can go silly or serious or anywhere in between (or both!).

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) [SAFETY]

I said in my Yuletide letter that I could watch this movie every day for a month and not get sick of it and I knew that because I'd done it and... yeah. Still very much that.

Prompts/Ideas

This is another one where I think an ensemble vid would work great, but any indvidiual you wanted to zoom in on or a particular interpersonal relationship would also be amazing. My one caveat here is that I do not buy that Doric reciprocates Simon's feelings for her... or that him not being confident enough was the issue in the first place, if you catch my drift. My drift being that I think she's a lesbian and I have no idea why that wasn't explicitly canon. Honestly my one criticism of the movie was that it could have been gayer, given that D&D is the queer nerd game. If you wanted to do a vid along those lines then that would be amazing! I, along with half the internet and their dog, am also deeply compelled by Edgin/Xenk and their whole thing where Edgin finds him insufferable and Xenk seems to find it very funny how annoyed he can make Edgin by being polite, straightforward, morally upright and implying that Edgin is at heart and honourable and good person. Ugh, what a jerk, right? 🤣 Something about Edgin's family (him and Zia and/or Kira; him and Holga; him, Kira and Holga; him and the party; any combination of the above) would be very lovely as well and I think it's one you could play pretty straight if you weren't in the mood for jokey jokes, or one where you could have humour, sentimentality, and pathos alongside each other. I also am here for Simon's arc of getting better at magic through gaining self confidence (Tub Thumping anyone?), or something about Forge being a smarmy bastard (I love him). I am here for any kind of vid for this fandom, honestly, so feel very free to follow your muse.

Marilyn Monroe Movies [UMBRELLA]

I once came out of HMV with about six Marilyn Monroe DVDs and put them in a bag from the bookshop where I'd bought a book about her and my sister said, "But you can kind of take or leave Marilyn, can't you?" because what are siblings for if not to make sport of you. I think Marilyn was such a subtle and talented actor and it's such a shame that even now she's primarily remembered as a sex symbol and almost... a part of American iconography, whose personal tragedies only make her more consumable, as opposed to a real person who was highly skilled at her craft and dedicated to it and who had a difficult life that was not a predestined tragedy or a cautionary tale. My favourite movies of hers are Some Like it Hot, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, How to Marry a Millionaire, Niagra, and Don't Bother to Knock. She doesn't have a huge role in it, but I also quite like her in There's No Business Like Show Business. I haven't seen all of her films, but feel free to pull from any of her work. I don't have any specific ideas, but I think there's a lot that you could play around with intertexually.

Only Murders in the Building (TV)

They called it the intergenerational friendship murder mystery show of dreams... and it was. It really was. Well, is, it's been renewed for season 4. But. Yeah.

Ideas/prompts

I just love how to the forefront anxieties about ageing and failure to reach expected markers of acheivement (either professionally, romanticaly, familially, or otherwise) is in this, in many ways, very silly comedy show. The highs are so high, the lows are so low, the silliness is so silly. I think that you could go very comedic or very dramatic with this and mix the two as much or as little as you wanted. I am always here for stuff about the central trio's relationship with each other, but I also highkey ship Theo Dimas with Mabel and would not be at all averse to seeing something along those lines. I also think that the rest of the cast are very interesting: Bunny and Uma's friendship, Howard's arc from lonely shut in whose only friend is his cat to someone who plays an active role in the plot as a recurring character, Cinda Canning and her... spectacular terribleness. I do support women's wrongs and Cinda is amazing. I am open to something shippy about Charles and Oliver, but I say that just on the off-chance that you wanted to do something like that anyway and weren't sure if I'd like it, so no pressure.

If you are someone browsing letters to scout out potential treats: hello! Thank you for the kind thought and if you are inspired by anything in my letter I am definitely open to being treated and have gifts enabled on AO3.

Return point
Jump to: General Likes (including vid and podfic likes)
Jump to: Do Not Wants
Jump to: Requests, Prompts and Fandom Specific Exceptions to DNWs

(Minor bit of business here before we get started: please click on the spoiler tag to uncollapse the DNWs before you start reading General Likes. You don't have to read the DNWs first, what's going on is that I have a couple of anchor links from some of the things listed in my General Likes to relevant exceptions I'd like people to steer clear of in the DNWs and those links only works if the DNW section is not collapsed behind its spoiler tag. The joys of HTML!)

Dear Spacer,

I'm

SweetPollyOliver. Thank you so much for offering one of my fandoms! I'm very excited to see what you come up with. Sorry I was a bit slow off the mark gettting this letter uploaded post-assignments going out! I've been a bit run off my feet with a new job lately and haven't had the time to sit down and write it until now. This got pretty long, so no pressure to read the whole thing, you can jump around to the bits that are relevant to you. Optional details are optional!

I am very easy to please, so try not to get stressed worrying about what I would like or dislike. I would much rather that you made me something that you really enjoyed creating than that you were anxious the whole time about my preferences. I will give some guidelines, in case that's what you’d prefer to work with, but they are just that: guidelines. Beyond my DNWs, I’m very happy for you to follow your own muse wherever it leads you, be it canon compliant or AU, gen or shippy, fluffy or angsty, SFW or NSFW, plotty or a snapshot of a moment in time.

General Likes

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I went into a lot of detail for some of these, so I have added spoiler tags to cut for length where appropriate.

There is no obligation to include anything listed if nothing here appeals to you or you can't think of a way to include it. I have only included so many things and gone into so many specifics because I wanted to give you a range of options to use for inspiration if you were stuck or you wanted to have some insight into what I like before you started. Also, I mostly wrote this list in advance as part of an exchange letter template I created to save time during exchange sign ups, including as much detail as I could think of, because I'm often quite stymied when I'm trying to write exchange letters on the clock (I almost always sign up in the last day or two) and I always worry that I haven't included enough detail, because historically I've found it hard to think of things to put down in the moment.

So, TL;DR, don't worry that I sat down and wrote out a list with this level of detail off the cuff, specifically for this exchange, and that I desperately want these requests and only those requests in my gift, because that is not the case at all. I'm very happy to be gifted something that introduces me to new things to add to this list!

I've kept most the NSFW likes together at the end, with NSFW details behind spoiler tags, but otherwise these are in no particular order:

Post-canon stories or, more broadly, stories that are largely canon compliant. Canon divergent AUs are great, fic that re-interprets or re-examines canon events with a different lens is also great. I am not especially reverent towards canon, but I like stories that rattles the bars of their canonical confines while remaining within them for the most part, if that makes sense. Also:
Prequel stories, especially ones that are:
Character studies, especially of characters who are sparsely characterised in canon
Missing scene stories
Stories with a strong ensemble cast
AUs that are a completely different setting to canon, especially fusions with other canons such as Pacific Rim AUs or The Last Unicorn AUs. See DNWs for exceptions to this
Dramatic irony, especially when it's comedic
Witty or otherwise humorous dialogue
As you can probably tell from the last two listed likes, I strongly prefer a comedic tone in fiction (or at least a comedic tinge, which can be ironic and/or bitter, in things that skew more towards the dramatic side of the comedy-drama spectrum)
Bittersweet or melancholy stories are also wonderful. I am always a sucker for regret and missed opportunities/wasted time
Quiet, domestic stories that have a sense of contentment about them
Exciting, dynamic stories that have a sense of uncertainty about them. I particularly really love stuff where I don't know what's going on for 85% of the plot and then it all clicks into place in the last 15% as reveals that were set up earlier start to fall like dominoes
Found family.
additional details
Characters can have any kind of relationship to their family of origin in these kinds of stories—I am equally happy with something about or featuring found families where the characters haven't spoken to their parents in years and never intend to again and things where one of the characters called their mom to talk to her about sourdough starter yesterday. Mixing and matching between these two extremes can be fun too!
Queer platonic partnerships.
additional details
The character(s) can be aro and/or ace, and/or be sexually and/or romantically attracted to a different gender to their QPP, or they can just be queer platonic partners not due to a mismatch or a mutual incompatibility of sexual and/or romantic orientation but because that is the kind of relationship that suits them
References to queer culture and history. This can be in conjunction with one or more queer ships, but can also be in something gen featuring one or more queer characters
Pining.
additional details
Especially when the character's feelings are actually requited and they're just unaware (especially-especially if the reader is aware before the character is through clues given but not explicitly stated in the narration) but also when their feelings genuinely are one-sided
Rarepairs
additional details
The interpretation of this term being used here includes ships that involve more than two partners. In most of my fandoms I usually end up getting more and more niche over time. I love when my first reaction to seeing a ship tag is, "Huh?" but then when I finish the work I'm completely sold by the execution of it because it feels true to the canonical characterisation of the characters and the evolution of the relationship (or invention of it, if they've never met before in canon) is a natural extension of that, so feel free to include ships that you really love that I have not mentioned in my fandom specific likes, as long as I haven't mentioned actively disliking them
Polyamory/non-monogamy, very much including forms of non-monogamy other than polyfidelitous triads, such as vee arrangements, polycules or open relationships etc.
additional details
Your fic can be primarily about X/Y and have it as a background detail that this relationship is non-monogamous, if you like. I really like something that is about X/Y, but X's canonical relationship with Z also exists in the fic without anyone cheating or getting jealous. For examples of the kind of thing I mean, cosmic_llin has some great fic where Deanna Troi is dating something who is not her canonical love interest, Will Riker, while also being in an established open relationship with Will Riker
Emotionally intense and tempestuous co-dependent relationships, which can either get healthier over the course of the narrative or remain very much a "don't try this at home" kind of depiction
Unironic "issuefic."
additional details
This is a term that turns up in DNWs rather than likes in a lot of fandom exchange letters, in my experience, but I genuinely love reading about The Issues™. This can include, but is not limited to, things like disability theory adjacent themes, trans headcanons, depictions of characters being very deliberate and careful about respecting consent, unironic depictions of characters talking like they're trying to get a good grade in therapy, examinations of the broader social context of the settings of various fandoms, middle aged men trying to be kind
Kid fic.
additional details
I prefer if the kid seems broadly realistic for the age they are depicted as being, but what is typical at a certain age varies a lot (I certainly had a very spiky developmental profile myself as a child) so don't stress about it
Knitting or other kinds of crafts, especially from authors who are crafters and especially-especially when it includes technical or jargon-y details
Speaking of jargon, I love STEM-y things being featured in fiction
additional details
like the stuff about mathematical proofs in astolat's Rodney McCay/John Sheppard fic Time in a Bottle. You don't have to go into enormous depth here to get a lot of bang for your buck in terms of how much it will please me. I nearly swooned when I read the main character of the novel Hold Me by Courtney Milan mention something about something being three standard deviations above the mean.
I also love:
Wildly unrealistic and campy fake science escapades
additional details
à la this fic I wrote where a CEO character's R&D department creates a super soldier who he falls in love with or this fic trinityofone wrote for the same ship where the CEO character uses fake science, again from his R&D department, to babytrap his love interest. Basically though, if a bubbling, neon green liquid housed in a beaker that is smoking profusely appears in your fic then you are on the right track!
Things relating to ageing.
additional details, some NSFW
Including, but not limited to: moments of wistfulness or melancholy about it, older characters having active and fulfilling sex lives, broader themes about ageing, or matter of fact inclusion of details about changes brought about with age. In terms of that last one, I once wrote a fic where a character's wrist started clicking after he fingered the woman he was having sex with for a long time, so stuff along those lines is great. That fic also had some sci-fi age-related stuff about the Phase where post-menopausal Betazoids' sex drive quadruples or more, so feel free to include speculative/sci-fi stuff about ageing too if it fits the setting of your fic!
Stuff about (wanted) pregnancy.
additional details, some NSFW
Including, but not limited to: cloyingly fluffy family fic, breeding kink (and/or risky sex) and overly specific and/or scientific details about pregnancy itself. These details can relate to real pregnancy or speculative/sci-fi pregnancies featuring alien physiology or artificial wombs, etc. Speculative/sci-fi pregnancy does not have to be realistic for me to enjoy it! Depictions of real pregnancy would ideally have a higher degree of realism though, as pregnancy has been a long standing special interest of mine. I don't mean, by this though, that you have to give someone a difficult pregnancy because they're over 36 and that's "more realistic" or something (also, fwiw, my aunt had her first baby at 48 and she had a very healthy and active pregnancy), just that I would prefer that any specifics that you mention are accurate (so no feeling the baby kick before 16 weeks, for example). If you want to create a work that features someone having a difficult pregnancy, or complications like gestational diabetes, though, go right ahead! I would ask though that if you go this route that it's more along the lines of h/c than something that ends tragically.
Notes regarding mpreg and people other than cis women getting pregnant
Cis mpreg heavily depends on execution for me and I am generally not that interested in it—when I do read it, I prefer cis mpreg where pregnancy is not the norm for cis men in that universe and it's contextually a fake science or magic-related thing. I am okay with trans mpreg, especially written by other transmasculine authors, and with other AFAB trans people getting pregnant as long as it is a wanted pregnancy and any depictions of dysphoria are not extremely graphic. If you would like to create a work where a trans woman or transfeminine or other AMAB trans person gets pregnant, then I'm totally open to that and my preferences for that align more closely to the ones I've mentioned for speculative/sci-fi pregnancy that to my preferences relating to cis men being depicted as being pregnant. Rather than wanting the pregnancy to be depicted as unusual or unique, as is my preferance for cis mpreg, I would prefer a fic where transition related healthcare has progressed or is on the cusp or progressing far enough to allow this kind of pregnancy to happen. Also, despite what I just said about preferring this kind of pregnancy not to be depicted as being singular in-universe, if you want to write fic where your character has gotten pregnant after being granted a wish by fairies, say, that is set in a universe where transition related healthcare has not, and will not in the near future, allow for AMAB people to get pregnant, go right ahead! This is relatively uncharted territory, fic-wise, to my knowledge, so go forth and be fruitful, as it were 😉 My only truly strong preference here would be that your character is pregnant due to wanting to be pregnant rather than for another reason.
I'm totally open to angsty fic about infertility that does not end with the character becoming pregnant (or, equally, fic where people do manage to get pregnant despite fertility issues). I prefer not to receive something that features miscarriages after 12 weeks for exchange gifts however, unless the character does manage to carry a pregnancy to term by the end of the story and the miscarriages are not depicted graphically. I am pro-choice, so where abortion is discussed (if, for example, the pregnancy was unplanned and the potential parent is thinking about options) I would strongly prefer that it was in a pro-choice context unless you really feel that one or more of the characters would be pro-life and the overall narrative itself did not endorse them on this. I have some pregnancy related DNWs at the link here, if you want to check to see what I do not want from this kind of story.
Since I mentioned it briefly in the above bullet point: speculative or canon alien physiology in settings where this is relevant.
additional details (mildly NSFW?)
Can be related to non-human typical genital configurations or more along the lines of Spock's heart being where a human's liver would be and him having copper based blood
Inclusion of sensory and sensual details (which may or may not be erotic) in the descriptions

Primarily NSFW likes start here

Getting together and/or stuff with a first kiss or first time having sex. I particularly like if first time sex scenes (and sex scenes generally) aren't Perfect™ and things are a little awkward in a way that the characters can laugh about

Oral sex of all varieties. I don't particularly care about erotica being historical accurate or not (or, indeed, about erotica being strictly realistic in general—it can be fun to write realistic sex, but if you want to write impromptu anal fisting, go for it! I have, lol), so feel free to include it in a setting where it would be unlikely, e.g. the Golden Age of Piracy

Friends with benefits/platonic sex. This can turn into fuckbuddies-to-lovers, but it doesn't have to. I am particularly partial to a character who wingmans for their fuckbuddy and gets them together with another love interest (whether or not the two friends continue to have platonic sex afterwards is fine either way)

Non-penetrative sex.

additional details

The characters can be actively choosing not to have non-penetrative sex specifically because of practical concerns, such as them don't want to risk pregnancy, or them wanting to fuck right the fuck now and not wanting to wait for an opportune time for anal, or a character having vaginismus, or one or more of the characters just doesn't like penetration. It can also just be something with non-penetrative sex. In particular, I really like when stories don't make a distinction between penetrative and non-penetrative sex in terms of what is considered to be "real" sex, e.g. things like characters referring to a time they had oral sex as, "When we fucked" or similar small nods to non-penetrative sex also being sex

Intercrural sex. This can transition into penetrative sex or not

First time bottoming and, more generally, first time doing X sex act or kink and/or characters realising that something they hadn't given much thought to, or had assumed they wouldn't be into, is something they're really into. I'd prefer they go into it with a "Sure, I'll try anything once" attitude rather than a "I'll do it For You" attitude

Virginity kink, especially if the fic itself doesn't buy into the social construction of virginity as a concept

Vid specific likes:

Humourous lyrics or ironic pairings of clips with lyrics for a humorous effect
I prefer if you use dialogue that it doesn't overlap with any lyrics and that there is no score from the canon source audible
Character study vids
Ensemble vids
Uptempo vids with lots of quick cuts on the beat and a sense of movement
But also: slower, contemplative vids with long clips

Other vid notes: I don't have any physical triggers you need to worry about and I don't mind "talky face." Subtitles would be nice, but are not essential. I'm not a huge Taylor Swift fan, so I'd prefer not to have a vid set to a TSwift song, but it's not a dealbreaker if you have an idea you really love for one and I'm sure that I could be won over.

Podfic specific likes: I love podfics where there is a clear delineation between the "narration" voice and the dialogue. I don't necessarily mean character voices and, honestly, I would prefer that you don't do imitate accents or the specific vocal "sound" of a canon character's voice, if that makes sense. I prefer podfic where the reader evokes different characters by their tone and where they put pauses and emphasis, etc—that said, if you are keen to do character voices, do not let me hold you back! I have a blanket permission statement regarding transformative works and you are more than welcome to make a podfic based on any of my fics, if you want and that's easier than hunting down an appropriate fic that fits the assignment from someone else who's open to podfics of their work, but I don't specifically prefer podfic of my own work to podfics of other people's work. I'd be delighted to get a podfic of any of the fics I have linked in this letter that would fit the assignment, or if there's something else that you think would be good then I'm very happy to listen to something new! I'm not a great bookmarker, I'm afraid, but you're more than welcome to have a dig through my AO3 bookmarks to see if there's anything that would be suitable that you want to make a podfic of.

Other podfic notes: If you are recording a podfic based on one of my fics, feel free to make minor edits (that don't change the intended meaning) to correct typos or if there's something that would give you an easier line reading or if you'd like to add dialogue tags in to make it clear who's speaking. If you want to podfic something that incorporates music or a soundscape, or other sound effects, that would be awesome and you don't have to worry that I would have a hard time processing it, but you also are in no way obligated to do something like that.

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DNWs

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First or second person narration, unless that is canon typical

Mundane modern AUs

(return to where you left off in General Likes)

Dark fic. I'm fine with angsty or bittersweet fic or with stories that are framed as tragedies, but I do not want something that is primary intended to be disturbing or that is unrelentingly miserable with no reprieve and no catharsis
Consensual non-consent or other rape fantasies
24-7 D/s relationships; Master/slave relationships
Humiliation kink. Non-kinky humiliation is fine
Degrading or insulting language in a kink context
Erotic asphyxiation. Non-erotic choking is okay
Heavy pain play. Light impact kink or discomfort from restraints is fine
Sadism
Sounding
Generally err on the side of caution with kinks I haven't specifically requested
More than passing depictions of bigotry. I enjoy things that engage with the broader social contexts of various fandom settings, but I do not want something centred primarily around experiences of bigotry in the context of an exchange
Fetishisation or romanticisation of a marginalised group e.g. race play, fetishisation of trans people, fat fetishism, fetishisation of physically disabled people's bodies, romanticisation of mental illness, etc. I do have a weakness for clueless class privileged characters who are poverty tourists, à la the woman in the song Common People, so I will say that I'm okay with this one, provided the character whose socioeconomic circumstances they are romanticising explicitly thinks they're being a dick by doing so (regardless of whether they also still have, or want to have, sex and/or a relationship with them)
Non-con or dub-con
Characters consenting to sex they think they won't like, whether they turn out to be right about this or not
Detailed descriptions of sex that is painful or unpleasant
Intimate partner violence or other related forms of abuse
Pregnancy related DNWs

Unwanted pregnancy
Stories where a character is coerced into becoming pregnant
Stories where the overall narrative explicitly promotes a pro-life sentiment
Pregnancy fic where the pregnancy ends in abortion or miscarriage (I'm pro-choice, but I also really like pregnancy fic, so for me this is like using the "there was only one bed" trope and then resolving it with someone sleeping on the couch)

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Before I get into the requests, just a quick note to say that I have written more for some of these for others, but that's more a function of how many tags I requested in each fandom and how many ideas I had for them than it is how much I want one specific fandom or requested tag. I'd be delighted to get something based on any of my requests!

Requests, Prompts and Fandom Specific Exceptions to DNWS

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Requested fanworks mediums I have requested fic, podfic or a vid for all of my requested fandoms.

Requested Fandoms

DS9

Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Requested tags: Worldbuilding: Consequences of reassociation (DS9), Relationship: Kira Nerys & Tora Ziyal (DS9), Relationship: Kira Nerys & Jake Sisko (DS9), Relationship: Kira Nerys & Benjamin Sisko & Jake Sisko (DS9), Relationship: Ezri Dax & Kira Nerys (DS9), Worldbuilding: PTSD post occupation of Bajor (DS9), Worldbuilding: Polyamory in the 24th century (DS9), Worldbuilding: Inter species relationships (DS9), Relationship: Kira Nerys/Keiko O'Brien/Miles O'Brien (DS9), Relationship: Kira Nerys/Keiko O'Brien (DS9), Relationship: Jadzia Dax/Lenara Kahn (DS9), Relationship: Ezri Dax/Lenara Kahn (DS9), Relationship: Ezri Dax/Kira Nerys (DS9), Relationship: Jadzia Dax/Kira Nerys (DS9)

Prompts and fandom specific likes: I love DS9 soooo much. I once sold it to a friend as, "It's amazing: everyone has PTSD!" I also think the fact that they stay in one place and have to live with the same situations and consequences of earlier decisions for the whole show gives it a very distinct flavour.

As you can probably tell from my requested tags, I am a big fan of Kira! I tend to read her as gay, but this is not essential if you don't see her that way. I think that pairing a Kira tag with something involving the "Worldbuilding: PTSD post occupation of Bajor" would work really well if you wanted to go that route, particularly the "Relationship: Kira Nerys & Tora Ziyal" tag. I think Kira and Ziyal's relationship is very compelling. Re: Kira and Ziyal, I wish we had been able to see more of this relationship in canon! I think that Kira's gentleness with Ziyal (even to the point of trying not to damage her relationship with her father, a man who would have killed her if Kira hadn't intervened (along with the many other legitimate reasons Kira has to despise Dukat)) is such an important part of her character. She is less optimistic than Ziyal, as a character, but she never tries to change her. Ziyal's relationship to the Cardassian occupation of Bajor would also be a really interesting thing to dig into. I would also love to see something more general about post-occupation Bajor though and how the population and subsequent generations of Bajor processed the occupation. Other tags that might be fun to combine would be the "Worldbuilding: Polyamory in the 24th century (DS9)" tag and the "Relationship: Kira Nerys/Keiko O'Brien/Miles O'Brien (DS9)" tag. Miles is probably the only man who I really ship Kira with tbh and it is a genuine tragedy that the two of them didn't pick up on Keiko's many hints that she was trying to set them up. But Keiko/Kira is, itself, very lovely and not to be overlooked! I think that something set when Kira was pregant, or possibly shortly after she'd given birth to Yoshi, would be really sweet. I feel like she should have gotten to live with the O'Briens for longer after her pregancy, because it must have been very difficult to be separated from Yoshi when she was post-partum. Even though she knew the whole time that he was not her baby and she never expected to be able to keep him, physiologically her body must have been like "Where is my baby???" So something where Keiko asked her to stay longer, and either Kira/Keiko or Kira/Keiko/Miles grew out of that, would be really nice. I would prefer that you don't break Keiko and Miles up even if you don't ship Kira with Miles, so a sort of vee-shaped polycule would be great in that case. Re: the Kira & Jake tag and the Kira & Jake & Ben tag, I am really interested in how Benjamin is like... both Kira's colleague and a major figure in her religion and how she keeps space for both of those ideas in her head. Kira and Jake's relationship post-canon is also something that really interests me. I feel that they would be a big comfort to each other, adjusting to the loss of Ben when he left linear time. I often think about that last shot in season seven of the two of them looking out at the wormhole together.

Re: the Dax ships I have requested, as you can see I have both the Jadzia and Ezri version of both of these relationships. The ways that Jadzia and Ezri are different and the ways that their relationships with the same characters parallel and diverge are really, really interesting to me. I am facinated by how Dax hosts "inherit" relationships from previous hosts (e.g. Curzon's friendship with Ben being passed down to Jadzia and then Jadzia's friendship with Ben being passed on in turn to Ezri) and that the boundaries are there with what counts as "reassociation" and what doesn't. Ezri didn't seem to worry about this being a problem when she slept with Worf, so I am inclined to think that the reassociation taboo is Trill-specific (and is possibly to try and avoid a class of joined Trill who only associate with each other and don't seek out new experiences and relationships with non-joined lifeforms). One of my favourite fics of all time involves the reassociation taboo (

katiemariie's "turn a little faster; the world will follow after") and uses Ezri/Lenara as a focal point for that, which really hooked me on Ezri/Lenara. I also love Jadzia/Lenara though! I think it's so lovely that they fell in love with each other again in a way that was distinct from the relationship that Dax and Kahn had had in the past. A canon-divergent story where the end of Rejoined went differently would be lovely, as would something where the characters were reunited again after that episode (either as Jadzia and Lenara or as Ezri and Lenara). And, in terms of my other requested Dax ships, Kira/Dax (both flavours) are both so interesting. I think that Kira really loosened Jadzia up from her more buttoned up science officer recently-graduated persona and paved the way for Jadzia's later characterisation. The "seat of your pants technology" scene lives rent free in my head. Ezri/Kira is, in some ways, the better version of Ezri/Julian for me. I love Julian, but I prefer his relationship with Dax to be platonic and I felt that reintroducing his romantic feelings for Jadzia later in the series was a bad move on the writers part and that pairing him with Ezri as a kind of reward/consolation prize was a disservice to both characters. But, back to Ezri/Kira! I generally imagine that Kira had feelings for Jadzia that she didn't act on and that she is conflicted about pursuing a relationship with Ezri in part because of that. She doesn't want to treat her like discount-Jadzia, but it's hard for the spectre of what-might-have-been with Jadzia not to loom large over her feelings for Ezri. If you wanted to go with a different take on this relationship though, I love different interpretations of things I ship and I'm always happy to be won over to a new headcanon.

Regarding the interspecies relationships tag, I am very happy for you to explore this in the context of either canon relationships or non-canon ones (including ones that I haven't mentioned in my letter). I don't have a lot of specific ideas for this one, because a lot would depend on the characters and the species involved and I don't want to box you in, but I love cultural clashes (either along the lines of "Um, why are you wearing shoes in your house?" or on a larger scale) and/or resonances between cultures (a Vulcan who counted cards because it was illogical not to having a relationship with a Ferengi gambler maybe?) as well as things based on less cultural and more biological factors, like differences in life span or difficulty conceiving or, on the less angsty side of things, learning exciting new ways to have sex that aren't a thing in your species of origin.

Fandom specific exceptions to DNWs: If you are writing about the Cardassian occupation of Bajor or about the consequences of reassociation, I waive my DNW about not wanting a story primarily about bigotry.

Spaceballs

Fandom: Spaceballs (1987)

Requested tags: Relationship: Lone Starr/Princess Vespa (Spaceballs), Character: Lone Starr (Spaceballs)

Prompts and fandom specific likes: I love Spaceballs and have done from childhood. I love all of the dumb jokes and the pastiches of other sci-fi properties. I'd like something similar in tone to the movie, so feel free to be as broad and silly as you want here. If you would like to do something a little more serious though, go for it! Deconstructions are also very fun.

Lower Decks

Fandom: Star Trek: Lower Decks (Cartoon)

Requested tags: Relationship: Samanthan Rutherford & D'Vana Tendi (ST: LD), Character: Samanthan Rutherford (ST: LD), Character: D'Vana Tendi (ST: LD), Relationship: Petra Aberdeen/Beckett Mariner (ST: LD), Relationship: Beckett Mariner/T'Lyn (ST: LD)

Prompts and fandom specific likes: Lower Decks is definitely my favourite of 2020s Trek. It's so funny, but never in a way that feels disrespectful to more straight takes on Trek. I really love Rutherford and Tendi's friendship and how well this show writes platonic friendships in general that feel weightier than how strictly platonic f/m friendships are sometimes treated in TV and movies. If you went with Rutherford specifically, I'm very interested in both his dark and troubled past and his lighthearted goofball present and the ways he reconciles the two. For Tendi, I think something pre-canon about her getting into Starfleet would be really interesting! Or something about her being a black sheep on Orion, with stuff like her doing little science experiments while her family is being floridly piratical in the background.

Regarding Petra/Beckett, I remain convinced that they had sex in that ship at least once on top of a pile of treasure. I don't think that either of them caught feelings, as such, but I definitely think they had fun.

With Beckett/T'Lyn, I think that Beckett recognising T'Lyn as a fellow loose canon would be amazing, especially if everyone else thinks T'Lyn might be a moderating influence on Beckett.

Voyager

Fandom: Star Trek: Voyager

Requested tags: Relationship: Tom Paris & Kathryn Janeway (ST: VOY), Relationship: Kathryn Janeway & Tuvok (ST: VOY), Relationship: B'Elanna Torres & Kathryn Janeway (ST: VOY), Character: Kathryn Janeway (ST: VOY), Worldbuilding: Coming to terms with being multi-species (Voyager), Worldbuilding: Interspecies relationships (Voyager), Relationship: B'Elanna Torres/Seven of Nine (Voyager)

Prompts and fandom specific likes: Voyager's premise is so interesting and I think that it leant itself to really compelling relationships within the crew. I love both post-canon things after they have returned home, but also stuff set in the Delta Quadrant when they were kind of in their own little bubble.

I think Tom & Janeway is really interesting because she recognised his potential when he himself didn't and she didn't take any shit from him on his road to living up to that potential. I think that Tom's relationship with his father has maybe led to him looking for a mentor figure he could look up to that he didn't have that family baggage with and that Janeway was that person for him.

I loooove Janeway & Tuvok. I requested it both times I participated in Star Trek Frienship Fest (may she rest in peace). They're so different and yet they are so loyal to each other and clearly have a lot of love for each other. I don't have a strong preference for a pre- during or post-canon setting on this one, but maybe something about Tuvok's daughter's Kohlinar, which Janeway attended? But I am wide open to anything you see for this.

Janeway & B'Elanna is so so compelling to me. There's so much there, from butting heads over Starfleet vs. Maquis issues to geeking out about science together to supporting each other as crewmates. I also love that Janeway is initially sceptical of B'Elanna's ability to lead, given that she didn't finish the programme at the academy and that she learns how wrong she was to have doubted her ("She could teach at the academy!" is a great Chakotay line and I'm very glad that he had his Maquis crew's backs and specifically B'Elanna's in the those early days). I think that they have a lot in common, both being brilliant and hardheaded, as well as being quite different from each other.

Speaking of B'Elanna, I looooove B'Elanna/Seven (either instead of or in addition to Tom/B'Elanna—I am not a fan of Seven's canonical relationship with Chakotay though). I'm so so invested in the journey that their relationship goes on from B'Elanna hating Seven's guts and thinking she's rude and high handed (and Seven thinking B'Elanna is inefficient and irrational) to them having a deeper understanding and respect for each other. I would love to see an evolution from "I hate her, she's so rude and terrible" to "If anyone even looks at Seven I will murder them" or, perhaps, something more along the lines of a hatefucking turned tender kind of thing 👀. I think they also have a lot of experience with being othered due to their perceived inhumanity and that's something that they could relate to each other over.

B'Elanna is the natural fit for something about coming to terms with being multi-species, but it might be fun to include Naomi Wildman in the mix here. What is her relationship to being part Ktarian? She is the only Ktarian that she knows for the first part of her life, not even having a Ktarian parent around to help with that part of her identity. I think that B'Elanna's line about how most of the crew on Voyager is human, even if there are Vulcans and Bolians and Talaxians on board too, is something that's very relevant here.

Similar to what I said for interspecies relationships in the context of DS9, I'm reluctant to go into too great detail for this, because I don't want to box you in. Again, I'm very happy for both silly and serious interactions between different cultures and biologies here.

Fandom specific exceptions to DNWs: I am okay with something about bigotry that B'Elanna and Seven face for being Klingon and Borg respectively.

TNG

Fandom: Star Trek: The Next Generation

Requested tags: Relationship: Jean-Luc Picard & Q (ST: TNG), Relationship: Guinan & Jean-Luc Picard (ST: TNG), Relationship: Data & Geordi La Forge (ST: TNG), Relationship: Beverly Crusher/Jean-Luc Picard (ST: TNG), Relationship: Worf & Kurn (TNG), Relationship: William Riker/Worf (TNG), Character: Simon Tarses (TNG), Relationship: William Riker/Deanna Troi (TNG), Character: Guinan (TNG), Worldbuilding: Planetside Trips for Recreation (TNG)

Prompts and fandom specific likes: Picard and Q is a perennial delight. I love how Picard is just so done with Q at his every appearance and that Q is delighted with this and genuinely seems to like Picard. Something set during the time when Q was stripped of his powers might be fun!

I reeeally like Guinan and Picard's almost Doctor and River Song-esq non-linear relationship and how much they respect and like each other. Something set from Guinan's POV about meeting Picard in the old West and then meeting him again on the Enterprise would be really fun. I'm not up to date on Picard, and from what I understand Guinan is on that too, but I can read relevant context from Memory Alpha if you want to include stuff from that.

Data & Geordi! Best friendship of my heart! I really like that Geordi doesn't condescend to Data, even when he's amused by Data getting the wrong impression of things. Geordi is so very human and it's easy to see why Data, who aspires towards humanity, values his friendship so highly. Maybe something along the lines of "Five times Data used Geordi as a model for human behaviour" would be fun?

Crusher/Picard is soooo goooood. The angstiness of Jack's death hanging between them, the distance that is created by their need to have a professional relationship, the fact that she is the only person on the ship who can give him an order, his mentorship of her son, their divorce in that alternate timeline where she, too, is Captain Picard. It's just all so good. Again, I have not caught up on Picard yet, but feel free to include anything from that show and I can scout around for context on Memory Alpha if I need to.

Worf & Kurn is so heartbreaking. The fact that Worf didn't even know he had a living brother by blood until Kurn showed up... and then, of course, their inability to have a relationship as adults when they are reunited, with all the political sabotage the House of Mogh suffers and the strife that this causes them. Did Worf ever meet his nieces? Did they ever find out what happened to their own father after the events of the DS9 episode Sons of Mogh? If you want to go with something along the lines of a fix-it for this that would be lovely, but I would also lap up something angsty.

Star Trek: Crossovers

Fandom: Star Trek: Crossovers

Requested tags: Relationship: Nog (DS9) & D'Vana Tendi (LD)

Prompts and fandom specific likes: I saw this in the tagset and squeaked outloud with joy. I feel that they'd have so much to talk about, as two Starfleet academy graduates from non-Federation homeworlds. Homeworlds, at that, that have a very specific reputation within the Federation. Nog graduated the academy in 2374 and Lower Decks is set in 2380, so I don't think they would have overlapped in the academy, but I think that Tendi could very well have looked up to him as a role model and maybe he corresponded with her in a demi-mentorship kind of role? He graduated in two years, rather than the usual four, so I think he definitely would have been held up as an example of the model non-Federation Starfleet cadet at the academy, for better or for worse. Actually, since as a non-Federation citizen Tendi would have needed a letter of sponsorship from a command level officer to apply to the academy, maybe Nog sponsered her? Paying forward what Sisko did for him. The timeline of Nog making that rank between 2374 and whenever Tendi joined Starfleet is maybe a bit tight, but I think that you can either fudge it or make Nog a super high flyer and feature that as part of the story and either would work. If you went with the latter then I think that the pressure to live up to that standard for both of them would be a fun theme to explore.

Fandom specific exceptions to DNWs: Given that my prompts here feature Nog and Tendi's alienation within the Federation, I'm open to receiving a work about bigotry that they face within Starfleet.

SGA

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis

Requested tags: Relationship: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay (SGA)

Prompts and fandom specific likes: I really love fic that explores John's "Yeah, I passed the Mensa test, so what?" side and how that intrigues and infuriates Rodney. I feel that he's smart enough in a pragmatic way to know that paying membership fees to Mensa every year is a bit of a racket and that I.Q. is an accident of birth, so (in the words of Stephen Hawking) only losers brag about their I.Q. and the fact that Rodney is so invested in his own brilliance is a delightful contrast between them. Something STEM-y for this fandom would be amazing, especially if John got in on the action in an academic way.

Fandom specific exceptions to DNWs: I would actually goggle up a college AU in for this fandom! Or, if you wanted to keep it canon, Rodney teaching in a university post-canon and John hanging around his office often enough and helping undergrads during office hours that Rodney didn't bother to go to often enough that the student body thinks that he works there.

I have also said in the past that I think that the point in time that SGA occupies, before DADT was repealed, combined with its military setting, lends itself to stories about being closeted in the military.

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To anyone else reading letters to look for people to treat, hi there! I have gifts enabled on my AO3 account, so treat away if you so desire, and thank you for the kind thought.
Return to beginning

Dear Vidder,

I'm

SweetPollyOliver in disguise as my Dreamwidth alter-ego. Thank you so much for offering one of my requested fandoms! I'm very excited to participate in this event and I can't wait to see what you come up with.

I am pretty easy to please, so feel free to take or leave any of the ideas I've suggested here if they don't speak to you. I also don't have physical triggers that I need you to avoid.

General vid (and music) likes

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Humourous lyrics or ironic pairings of clips with lyrics for a humorous effect
Vids with a narrative/emotional arc
Character study vids
Ensemble vids
Uptempo vids with lots of quick cuts on the beat and a sense of movement
But also: slower, contemplative vids with long clips
Music specific likes:

Vocal jazz, especially Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone and Chet Baker (my token white man in this category, lol). I mostly listen to stuff from the 1930s-1960s, but I'd be thrilled to get something set to more contemporary jazz too
Great American Songbook singers, i.e. anyone known for singing things composed by Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, Hoagy Carmichael, Rodgers & Hammerstein, etc. but especially Judy Garland
Motown, e.g. Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, The Jackson 5 and Smokey Robinson
Disco, e.g. The Bee Gees, Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Boney M., Earth Wind & Fire, Chaka Khan and the Village People
Rock and pop from the 1960s-1980s, e.g. The Mamas & the Papas, Janis Joplin, Neil Young, Cher, The Turtles, The Beach Boys, Fleetwood Mac, David Bowie, ABBA and Queen
Contemporary pop, e.g. Carly Rae Jepsen, Ke$ha, Lady Gaga, Mitski, Hayley Kiyoko, Marina (& the Diamonds), Florence + the Machine
Contemporary hip hop and R&B, e.g. Lizzo, Megan Thee Stallion, Doja Cat, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Shea Couleé and Janelle Monáe
Pop folk, e.g. Simon & Garfunkel, Sufjan Stevens, Belle and Sebastian, Mumford & Sons and Joni Mitchell
Musical theatre e.g. Patti Lupone, Audra McDonald, Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel
Country, e.g. Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Trixie Mattel, Skeeter Davis, Loretta Lyn, Woody Guthrie, Willie Nelson, Shania Twain, Norah Jones, Lil Nas X, Sheryl Crow and Miley Cyrus

Other relevant notes on vid preferences

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I don't mind "talky face" and I don't mind dialogue from the canon being used, but I prefer if you do use dialogue that it doesn't overlap with any lyrics and that there is no score from the canon source audible.

There aren't really any genres of music that I actively dislike and if you get the vibe that I would like something based on the things I have listed above, and it's not a DNW, then you're probably right. I don't listen to a huge amount of instrumental music, but I do enjoy it! Also feel free to vid something to a non-music audio source, such as poetry.

Subtitles would be nice, but are not essential.

DNWs

Vids set to music performed by Taylor Swift or Michael Bublé.

Requested fandoms

There are spoilers in each section, so read at your own risk!

Willow (1998) [SAFETY]

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Why I like this fandom: This is a real comfort fandom for me from my childhood and I really love all the female characters in it (well... love to hate Bavmorda—she is delightfully camp and evil). It's kind of interesting that, besides Willow himself and Madmartigan, almost all the key players in Willow are women, which feels a bit atypical and special for 1980s fantasy movies, which is a genre that I dearly love.
Fandom-specific vid prompts: I think that something that taps into the fairy tale adjacent vibe of the movie (or, alternately, that completely contrasted with it in an interesting or funny way) would be great. I'm very happy to receive a vid featuring more than one of my requested characters if we've matched on multiple characters.
Requested characters:
- Sorsha: I love Sorsha so much. Having rewatched the movie recently, I think that my memory of her arc was a bit more fleshed out than it was in the actual film, where she just sort of decided not to be evil anymore because Madmartigan flirted with her, but I actually don't even care because I consider my rose-tinted glasses to be the true canon here. She's just so compelling! She's that kind of "daughter of the evil wizard who turns towards the light when a male hero falls in love with her" archetype, but that is complicated by the fact that the evil wizard, in this instance, is a single mother (who doesn't seem to value her or treat her very well, but that's another matter). She's also a military commander! She's not a passsive figure in the narrative who gets traded off between the bad guys and the good guys as a trophy, she goes from active antagonist to active ally. I think something about her relationship with her mother and/or her heel-turn would be amazing. I do ship Sorsha/Madmartigan, so feel free to include that if you like, but it's not necessary. You can also incorporate footage of Sorsha from the Willow TV show that came out last year, if you'd like!
- Fin Raziel: Raziel! My beloved! She's just so... I don't even have the words. There's something so tragic about her lost youth and then something so interesting in how she pragmatically just moves on after a brief "Has it been that long?" when Willow finally succeeds in turning her back into a human, and just gets to work. I'm also always a sucker for characters who are physically transformed. I'd be really interested in any kind of Raziel vid, whether it was angsty or about her being a #girlboss who gets shit done or anything else between those extremes of emotion and seriousness.
- Bavmorda: As I said above, Bavmorda is fantastically camp. I love villains and she really has it all. The deranged laughing, the plot to not only kill a baby but banish her to a realm of eternal suffering to prevent her being reincarnated. I think that something silly along the lines of something set to Eartha Kitt's I Wanna Be Evil would be really fun here. Also! If you happen to have matched with me on both Bavmorda and Raziel, I recently had the galaxy brained idea that maybe they are ex-girlfriends, so if that's something that appeals to you and that you'd like to run with then that would be amazing. I love enemies to lovers, but lovers to enemies is also extremely good.
- Cherlindrea: She's so cool! I don't know how feasable it would be to do a whole 1 minute Cherlindrea-only vid, since she doesn't have a lot of screentime, but I think that you could probably get creative with including things that sort of evoked her as well as footage of her. I think this one would probably work best played straight, with sort of ethereal and magic overtones to it.

Willow (TV 2022)

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Why I like this fandom: As I said above, the Willow movie is incredibly dear to me. I was really looking forward to this show for a long time (it kept getting pushed back, which made waiting feel agonizing) but it turned out to be everything I could ever have wanted from a sequel/reboot. Visually, it's so in keeping with the aesthetic of the movie, with the higher production values not implying a disrespect or reinvention of what came before. Also! The new characters are so, so amazing! The returning characters are also amazing and there isn't this kid-gloves treatment where they're afraid to present beloved characters as complex and flawed. If you haven't seen it and you like the original movie, I really recommend it.
Fandom-specific vid prompts: I think that, again, you could span the whole spectrum from a very straight epic fantasy vibe to something more irreverant and silly. The show handles both tones very well and either (or a combination of both) would be very in keeping with that. I think a contemporary choice of music would work well—maybe a cover of something from the 80s if you wanted to get meta with it?
Requested characters:
- Kit Tanthalos: Oh Kit... trashfire gay baby of my heart. She's so, so awful, I love her. She's privileged and proud and jealous and hurt and loving and- argh! It feels so refreshing to me to see a female character get to be this messy and not be relegated to the "holder of the brain cell." Something about her relationship with her family (or her mother Sorsha, her brother Airk, or her father Madmartigan specifically), or the responsibilities and privileges her nobility brings, or something shippy about her and Jade, or something about her jealousy of Elora would all be awesome. I am also a fan of her BroTP with Boorman.
- Jade Claymore: Jade! Sweet precious angel! She is a bit saddled with being the keeper of the brain cell, poor thing, but her character is not flattened or sidelined by this, I feel? She's just so... I love her. I love that she tries so, so hard to be what her mentors/Kit/Tir Asleen needs and how she has been failed by all of the people and things she's devoted herself to. The fact that she was the child of General Kael and was, essentially, kidnapped by the Knights of Galladoorn and raised to despise the Bone Reavers is really compelling to me and I like how it complicates the more simplistic Good vs Evil broad strokes of the movie.
- Elora Danan: I'm so, so delighted with how they handled Elora. She's such a great take on the Chosen One archetype and the fact that she is so human and feels so authentically like a young person with big, complicated feelings who is dealing with A Lot. I think something about identity and finding yourself or coming of age might work here? Or anything about any of her relationships (platonic and romantic) in the show, or about her efforts to live up to her foretold destiny and how it feels when she thinks she's falling short of what is expected of her.
- Scorpia: Scorpia is someone I really hope we see more of in future seasons if the show gets renewed. As I mentioned in Jade's bullet point, I really like how the show has expanded and complicated the role of the Bone Reavers and she is such a big part of that, both as Jade's sister who was separated from her, as one of General Kael's two living children (of twelve) and as a leader. I also ship her canonical relationship with Boorman and if you wanted to include something about that, go for it.
- Mims Ufgood: It was so lovely seeing Mims all grown up! There is so much tragedy and dignity in her and I wish she was in more of the show. I think that something played straight is the way to go for a Mims vid and probably something pretty angsty.

Cagney and Lacey

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Why I like this fandom: Full disclosure: I started watching this show primarily for reasons of being thirsty for Martin Kove. However! It's so much more than that. It is, of course, a cop show, with all that that entails, but I think that, in many ways, it does a better job of portraying nuance and honesty about the failings of the police than a lot of more contemporary police procedurals? Your mileage may vary, of course. I certainly think that it holds up very well compared to its contemporaries in the genres at any rate though.
Fandom-specific vid prompts: I think that there's a lot of ways you could go on this! You could do something about gendered expectations of the 1980s (in the police force and more generally), you could do something about friendship, you could do something that was explicitly critical of the show's more overtly copaganda moments. Music-wise, I think something from the time period would work well, but that's not to say that something more modern, or something from an earlier time period, like something deeply sexist that came out when that sentiment was less controversial in the mainstream, along the lines of Wives and Lovers.
Requested characters:
- Ginger Cohen: I looooove Ginger. Honestly, if I had only requested Ginger's episodes then I'm 99% sure this would have counted as a safety fandom. But even if she's not a main character, she is to me. She is Detective Victor Isbecki's eventual wife and, basically, the first woman he's seen who he didn't go out with because they were young and cute. She's older than he is, academic, a divorcee, a mother. I mean... maybe she went out with him because he was young and cute! I'm also interested in if and how she helped Isbecki explore his Jewish heritage after he found out that his father had been Jewish. Whether you wanted to go with something serous or lighthearted with this, it's all good! I think if you were going lighthearted something like Does Your Mother Know would be a fun Ginger/Victor vid from her POV.
- Mary Beth Lacey: I started watching Cagney and Lacey because I was thirsty for Martin Kove, but when I got into it I swiftly started being thirsty for Tyne Daly. I really like that in the odd couple pairing of Cagney and Lacey, it's Lacey who is the one with left wing politics and that they didn't go with the easy "Well, she's married and has kids, she's probably the Republican" route. Something about how she's in the era of "you can have it all!" and how demanding it actually is to try to have it all would be really great, as would something about her partnership with Cagney.
- Christine Cagney: Oh Christine... you problematic fave, you. I probably would not remotely like Christine Cagney in real life, but as a fictional character I find her facinating. The contradictions in her poltics where she's very against sexism as it pertains to her, but then she's typically on the right elsewhere and seems quite happy to pull the ladder up behind her with regards women who make different choices to her or who aren't from a background she finds respectable. I see her as a closeted (even to herself) lesbian who has been very messed up by being raised by her socially conservative father. Something about her struggles with alcoholism would be very interesting, as would something about her politics or her partnership with Lacey or her issues with maintaining romantic relationships.

Succession (TV 2018)

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Why I like this fandom: I actually actively resisted watching Succession for a long time, because I saw a lot of people on Tumblr poking fun at people blorbifying capitalists and I was like... okay, maybe not. Also I mostly saw stuff about Tom/Greg which, no hate to that ship, didn't really seem to be unmissable given that, as I so often say, we have white dude slash at home. However! Then I found out about Gerri/Roman and my kinky older woman/younger man ship loving ears pricked up. And I'm really glad I did, because I love all of these awful people now and I am unironically blorbifying all of my special little 1%ers.
Fandom-specific vid prompts: I'm madly in love with the scoring of this show and I think it makes great use of dissonance to imply the dissonant relationships of the Roy family, so I suppose my possibly-not-very-helpful suggestion here is to try to find something that uses a lot of dissonance or music that supports the themes in terms of the music itself as well as the lyrics (if you go with something that has lyrics).
Requested characters:
- Gerri Kellman: As I said above, Gerri is one of the main reasons that I watched the show in the first place. I would die for Gerri. I love how she's so calculated and careful, but then also does things that are wildly reckless, like starting up that quasi-affair with Roman (and then gaslight, gatekeep, girlbossing her way into pretending it wasn't happening). I think that she is a stone cold killer bitch, as Roman called her in one episode, but I also think that she has a vulnerable and soft side that she's wary of exposing. I think that being widowed had a big impact on her, because as well as losing her life partner she lost possibly her only guaranteed ally in Waystar Royco. She is also very flawed and has gotten her hands dirty being the Roys' sin-eater, but, as she says to Tom, it is a great job and you get to eat a shit tonne of cake. I'd love something about her ambivalence, either about her role in the business or in her relationships.
- Shiv Roy: Shiv is so great. I love that she thinks she's the good Roy. Like what I was saying about Christine Cagney in the Cagney & Lacey section, I really love the contradictions and willful self delusions in Shiv's politics. She is A Woman™, so she must be progressive on that basis alone, right? She plays at being a campaign manager for Democrats to piss off her dad and to differentiate herself from her family, but she has no moral convictions, or at least none that she won't sacrifice for her own self interest. In the words of her father she's blue but she "gets it" and she never betrays her class interests. I think that something satirizing the #girlboss #leanin nature of Shiv would be really fun, but if you wanted to go down a more serious route and look at her various emotional wounds and the context of her awfulness that would also be amazing. I also, for what it's worth, think she genuinely does love Tom, which I imagine is very embarassing for her.

The Tick (TV 2017)

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Why I like this fandom: I am so, so fond of this show. I watched The Tick cartoon as a child, but wasn't really aware of the other adaptations until the 2017 show came out. Having explored the franchise more now, the 2017 show is far and away my favourite of them. It's so sincere and sweet, while also being hilarious and quite cutting at times. Truly, it has it all.
Fandom-specific vid prompts: I think, like the show, you could go either goofy and heighted or play the more devastating parts of it quite straight (or do both!). I don't have any specific thoughts about music for this fandom, but I don't think there's anything that really wouldn't work.
Requested characters:
- Dot Everest: I love Dot so much. Her arc from being her brother's keeper as it were, to going completely off the rails of her sensible, carefully planned life and embracing chaos in season two when she drops out of school and quits her job to become a masked vigilante. You love to see it. I think that something about her being so tightly coiled and type-A and compartmentalising her own trauma to prioritise her brother's and how she let go of that would be really great. I do also ship her with Overkill, so I'm very happy to have some Overdot vibes included.
- Ms Lint: Ms Lint is such a beautiful marriage of a campy villain that you can enjoy hammy around chewing the scenary and also someone who is genuinely very chilling. I also love that she isn't ever truly redeemed! She gets to go around doing her evil thing and if she's nominally on the same side as the good guys sometimes then that's purely incidental. Like Bavmorda, I think that something about enjoying being evil would be a really great fit. If you were able to do something that balanced the tone between silly, fun camp and something more chilling then that would be amazing, but I'd be happy with either take on its own too.

Quantum Leap (TV 2022)

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Why I like this fandom:I grew up on the 1989 Quantum Leap show and I couldn't be more thrilled with this reboot. It's everything I could possibly want as a continuation and/or reboot of the original. It's true to what made the Scott Bakula show so special, but it's not so reverent of it that it's not afraid to do its own thing and it improves on the representation of the original. To date, there are no recurring white male characters and that's never treated as something remarkable.
Fandom-specific vid prompts: Oof, this would really depend on the character you wanted to focus on! I think that, similar to what I said about the Willow TV show, that a fun thing to do with the choice of music would be to use a modern cover of a song from the 80s, but that's just an idea.
Requested characters:
- Addison Augustine: Addison is so, so interesting and compelling to me. Her fury at choices being taken away from her and her inability to physically help Ben on his leaps is really powerful. I love Addison/Ben, so something along those lines would be great, but if you wanted to focus in on her specifically I think something about her perfectionism and desire for control would be great.
- Jenn Chou: Jenn! Reformed criminal of my heart. I love that she's kind of the big stick that Project Quantum Leap carries while walking quietly, in a way. There is also so much depth hinted at but not spelled out explicitly with her characterisation. I think that she's someone who has had a lot of tragedy in her life and who has had to be self sufficient and is just now learning how to rely on others.
- Ian Wright: My sole non-woman request! I love Ian and I love their casual inclusion in the main cast. They are maybe the first canonically non-binary character I watched without bracing myself and who I turned out not to have needed to brace myself, or certainly among the first (thinking it over, Jim Jimenez from Our Flag Means Death might be numero uno). And, with that being said, the casual nature of their inclusion and the fact that they are not used as a didactic tool for cis viewers does not mean that their gender is never relevant! I think the ways they talk about gender are very true to how real non-binary people talk about it and it never feels tacked on or forced or fetishistic. I also love that their skill as a programmer is the main focus of their characterisation. Also, let's be real, a transfeminine computer scientist who keeps a cat ears headband in their desk "in case of emeowgencies" is literally the most accurate trans represenation I've ever seen.
- Janis Calavicci: Janis, as Al's daughter, is such a vital link to the original show! It's kind of an interesting meta thing that she's explicitly excluded from Project Quantum Leap because of her ties to the original project, which could maybe act as a metaphor for this show doing its own thing? And yet, she insistently inserts herself into the narrative and is the whole reason that it kicks off in the first place. I'm so intrigued by her and what her Deal is. Also, I kind of ship her with Jenn, but that's another story.
- Ziggy: I felt incredibly cheeky nominating Ziggy, given that, as an AI, she has no embodied presence on the show, but colls said it was okay, so I will let go of my scruples about requesting something that would be very challenging to vid! I think that this could be a really interesting challenge though, tbh? I think that something from Janelle Monáe's album Dirty Computer or something by Daft Punk or Kraftwerk, or something else along similar lines, could be really fun. Feel free to pull footage of the handlink from the original Quantum Leap show and from any non-canon sources that help to evoke Ziggy.

To anyone else reading letters to look for people to treat, hi there! I have gifts enabled on my AO3 account, so treat away if you so desire, and thank you for the kind thought.

Dear Festividder,

Thanks so much for offering one of my requested fandoms! I can’t wait to see what you make.

I am very easy to please and definitely want you to make the vid that you want to make, but if it helps then here are a few things I like: I really like both uptempo vids with a strong beat and lots of movement and slower, more contemplative vids with lots of long clips. And everything in between those extremes! I also have a very soft spot for comedic vids, either in terms of funny moments here and there or something that is all jokes from start to finish, so that would be lovely to receive. As I said though, I'm pretty easy to please, so whatever you feel inspired to make will be amazing.

I have written more under some fandoms than others, but I genuinely would be delighted to receive a vid for any of them. I’m signing up at the last minute this year, so I was a little rushed writing my letter.

Marilyn Monroe Movies [UMBRELLA]
I have loved Marilyn Monroe for years and I’d be delighted to get a vid featuring her movies. My favourites are Some Like It Hot, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and There’s No Business Like Show Business but feel free to venture more widely afield if you want to! If you wanted to make something that was a bit meta about Marilyn The Icon vs Marilyn/Norma Jeane as a real person that would be amazing.

Derry Girls (TV)
This show is such a wonderful rendering of a time and a place while also having a kind of universal coming of age quality about it. I would love some kind of an ensemble vid, but if you wanted to focus in on any particular character and do a character study that would also be fantastic. Similarly, something about family, both biological and found, would be great.

Abbott Elementary (TV)
As someone who watched A Lot of Buzzfeed back in the mid 2010s, I’m so proud of Quinta Brunson for the success of this show. This is another one where I’d love an ensemble vid, or even something about the relationships individual characters have with Janine. Or a Janine character vid. I love Janine, you guys.

A League of Their Own (TV 2022)
I literally am having a hard time thinking of a subject for a vid I wouldn’t like for this show. Whether you wanted to make something shippy, something about the platonic relationships in the show, something offering social commentary, an ensemble, a character study, it would all be amazing. I will mention a specific idea just because it might not be something immediately obvious when there are so many other fantastic angles, but something about Shirley’s OCD would be really great. Again though, I am wide open when it comes to this fandom.

Big Eden (2000) [SAFETY]
A queer classic! I love this cozy little film and have been wanting to have a rewatch since we lost Louise Fletcher earlier this year. I would love something about Pike’s courtship of Harry. The food, the benign interference from his friends, his shyness. It’s all so sweet and I want to roll around in it.

Only Murders in the Building (TV)
Another one where I would love an ensemble vid. It can be heartwarming, it can be sad, it can be both. I really love the balance of humour and genuine melancholy in the show, so I think there is scope for a variety of tones you could hit and have it feel very apt. I am also madly in love with Mabel Mora and if you wanted to do a Mabel character vid I would love that.

Star Trek: Lower Decks (Cartoon)
Probably my favourite of the newer Trek offerings of the past few years. I love the silliness tempered by the deep respect the show has for Star Trek as a whole. Again, I would be very happy with an ensemble vid about the crew of the Cerritos (or our main characters specifically), but I would also love something about Mariner and her relationship with both her parents and Starfleet.

Dear Festividder,

I am

SweetPollyOliver. Thank you so much for offering one of my fandoms! I'm really excited to see what you come up with.

In terms of my general vid preferences, I really like both uptempo vids with a strong beat and lots of movement and slower, more contemplative character studies with lots of long clips. And everything in between those extremes! I'm pretty easy to please, so whatever you feel inspired to make will be amazing.

In terms of my specific preferences:

Gattaca
My strong preference for this is not to include any footage of Eugene's suicide at the end of the film. Other than that, I'm open to anything! It would make my entire year to see a Gattaca vid of any kind.

Galaxy Quest
Oh man. There are so many ways you could go about this, all of which I'd love. You could frame it as a love letter to fandom (or SF, or Star Trek), you could make a shippy vid (I am partial to Gwen/Jason/Alexander, Jason/Alexander, Gwen/Jason and Fred/Laliari), you could make something funny highlighting the many shortcomings of our intrepid crew, you could break my heart and do something sad centred around the Thermians. I'd be so thrilled to see anything for this movie.

Singin' in the Rain
I think some kind of a vid centred around dance (or ~showbusiness) could be really fun! If you made it polyam I would love you forever and ever.

Buzzfeed Unsolved
I'm very open to you pulling footage from other sources (e.g. other Buzzfeed videos with Shane and Ryan, Watcher content, etc.) if you want to. I prefer Supernatural to True Crime (also I think it's more visually interesting footage a lot of the time from a vidding point of view) and something spoopy might be fun, but equally something funny would be very much in the spirit (heh) of the show. I would also love something about Ryan and Shane's friendship, because they are my brotp.

Much Ado About Nothing (1993)
I'll be completely honest, I don't have many ideas for this one, but I saw it in the tagset and went completely feral. I love this play and, specifically, I love this adaptation so goddamn much. I successfully campaigned for my sister to be named Beatrice because I loved this adaptation so much when I was ten. Something snarky/funny for Beatrice/Benedict would be amazing. My main request here, I guess, is to keep it fairly light. I know that there is some Dark Stuff with the Hero/Claudio plotline, but what I really love about this play is the silliness and hijinks. I would not be at all averse to you pulling footage from other adaptations (e.g. the Nothing Much To Do webseries or the David Tennant and Catherine Tate stage version, although not the Joss Whedon version which I have Opinions about) if you wanted to!

Some Like It Hot
Again, something silly would be so welcome for this source. I would request though to try not to frame the dressing-as-women part of the plot as being funny in and of itself.

The Road to El Dorado
Another source where wacky hijinks abound! Again, if you could find some way to make this polyam, I would gladly swear a life debt to you.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
Baby!Art would be so happy if you made a Power Rangers vid! And by baby!Art, I mean of course 33 year old Art, because I still love Power Rangers to distraction. I would really, really love some kind of a Bulk and Skull (or Bulk/Skull!) vid, or something feauturing the villains (maybe a Rita/Zedd vid!). I do also love Our Heroes and would be very happy to see something with them.

Dear Festividder,

Thanks so much for creating a vid for me! I'm SweetPollyOliver on AO3. This is my first year participating in Festivids and I’m very excited. As a quick disclaimer, I am signing up at the last minute and have not been able to find a lot of Dear Festividder letters to model mine on, so I don’t know how useful what I have written is. I hope it is some use!

In terms of accessibility, I don’t have any particular requirements. Generally speaking I like a lot of uptempo vids with a strong beat (although reviewing my requests, I don’t know how many of them would lend themselves to that kind of vid), but I have also enjoyed a lot of slower paced ones with a more contemplative vibe so don’t feel married to doing the former.

Gattaca
My main request here would be to not include scenes of Eugene’s suicide at the end of the film. Beyond that, I’d be very happy with anything for this little fandom! I’ve loved the movie for years and, as a disabled person, find it very resonant with contemporary ableism.

Buzzfeed Unsolved
This might be a tough one to make look dynamic, since there is a lot of sitting behind a desk, but (if this is permissible - I am a n00b and do not know such things) maybe borrowing footage from the Test Friends series or other Buzzfeed videos with Shane and Ryan would help things along? I mention this purely in the spirit of wanting to be helpful; if it’s not helpful, feel free to ignore.

Galavant
I feel like a musical theatre song would be a lovely choice here. Something comedic, for preference, but again, do be guided by your own judgement.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1981)
Oh the cheesy sci fi comedy of my heart! This is very near and dear to me and there is little you could do that I wouldn’t adore. Again, I think something comedic in tone would fit well with the source material. If you wanted to make it a bit shippy with regards Ford/Arthur that would be a delightful bonus.

GLOW
Something showcasing the ensemble cast would be lovely, but equally something about the relationship between Ruth and Debbie would also be amazing.

Star Trek: Discovery
I’m torn here, because, again, team/ensemble stuff would be fantastic but also a character study vid focusing on Michael Burnham would be great too! I’m not picky though, anything would be very much appreciated.

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Dear Festividder Letter 2024
Equinox Exchange Dear Vidder letter
Festivids 2023: Dear Vidder letter
Space Swap 2023: Dear Spacer letter
A Woman's Place (Is In The Resistance) Dear Vidder letter
Festivids Dear Vidder Letter 2022
Dear Festividder letter 2020
Festivid Letter

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Entries tagged with letter: dear vidder

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Dear Festividder Letter 2024

Equinox Exchange Dear Vidder letter

Festivids 2023: Dear Vidder letter

Space Swap 2023: Dear Spacer letter

A Woman's Place (Is In The Resistance) Dear Vidder letter

General vid (and music) likes

Other relevant notes on vid preferences

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Requested fandoms

Willow (1998) [SAFETY]

Willow (TV 2022)

Cagney and Lacey

Succession (TV 2018)

The Tick (TV 2017)

Quantum Leap (TV 2022)

Festivids Dear Vidder Letter 2022

Dear Festividder letter 2020

Festivid Letter

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