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Make The Yuletide Gay 2021
What is Make the Yuletide Gay?
While introducing m/m and f/f content into an otherwise cishet canon is one of the many delights that fandom brings into the world, this mini-challenge is made with the purpose of bringing together those who love LGBT+ characters or canon same-gender relationships and who want to write, request, and read works centered around those characters.
What counts as a canon LGBT+ character or canon relationship? For the purposes of this challenge, we rely on the honor system. If your fandom was created in a time period or in a country where coded language/actions were needed we understand that it might not be as explicit and clear-cut as one without those limitations.
Keep in mind that this challenge is geared towards those who are actively interested in canon LGBT+ characters/couples. Including a request that falls more into the headcanon or fanon category may mean that it does not catch the attention of those who are into canon content, and those who prefer fanon will likely not check out this post due to the canon focus, e.g. you may be marketing to the wrong crowd and wasting your time!
(Language copied from the original mini-challenge and reformatted to fit the modern mini-challenge format thanks to YulePorn's example.)
While introducing m/m and f/f content into an otherwise cishet canon is one of the many delights that fandom brings into the world, this mini-challenge is made with the purpose of bringing together those who love LGBT+ characters or canon same-gender relationships and who want to write, request, and read works centered around those characters.
What counts as a canon LGBT+ character or canon relationship? For the purposes of this challenge, we rely on the honor system. If your fandom was created in a time period or in a country where coded language/actions were needed we understand that it might not be as explicit and clear-cut as one without those limitations.
Keep in mind that this challenge is geared towards those who are actively interested in canon LGBT+ characters/couples. Including a request that falls more into the headcanon or fanon category may mean that it does not catch the attention of those who are into canon content, and those who prefer fanon will likely not check out this post due to the canon focus, e.g. you may be marketing to the wrong crowd and wasting your time!
How Do I Participate?
- Leave a comment on this post linking your letter if you are requesting canon LGBT+ characters or a canon same-gender relationship.
- If you don't have a letter, you can still leave prompts here, but make sure to include your AO3 name and requested fandom information.
- Add any optional details you want in the comment -- link to a ship manifesto or fanvids or gifs, give the tl;dr dynamics of your character/requested relationship, whatever.
- When it comes time to upload your works, tag with "Make the Yuletide Gay" on AO3 so interested parties can easily find it.
- Even if your recip didn't explicitly "sign up" to this post, please still tag if you're writing about a canon LGBT+ character or ship!
- There will be a comment thread where you can promo your favorite characters/relationships in the tagset to perhaps signal other people's requests even if you didn't request a canon LGBT+ character or relationship yourself this year. The best thing about Yuletide is the gifts other people can feel like our own!
- Add participation to the app so that anyone browsing will know that you're signed up for this challenge!
- Have fun!
(Language copied from the original mini-challenge and reformatted to fit the modern mini-challenge format thanks to YulePorn's example.)
no subject
The Girls I've Been - Tess Sharpe
Requested characters: Lee Ann O’Malley (aka Amelia Deveraux), Agent Marjorie North, Nora O’Malley
All three of my requested characters are canonically queer and are/have been in story-relevant same-sex relationships. Lee Ann O'Malley is a private investigator who worked for years to get her little sister Nora away from their conwoman mother and her abusive criminal husband, and Marjorie North is the FBI agent who Lee Ann met and manipulated into eventually helping her - but, they fell in love in the process. This didn't stop Lee Ann from betraying Marjorie's trust for Nora's sake, or from disappearing with her sister into new identities in a quiet California town, leaving a lot of unresolved feelings in her wake.
The book itself really only shows us the aftermath of their relationship, as it's mostly focused on Nora's experiences (past and present), so I'm requesting fic that explores and expands on the glimpses canon gives us; a tragic, complex love story riddled with deception and ulterior motives.
The book itself is an engaging YA thriller featuring themes around identity, relative morality, surviving abuse, and found family/building a life for yourself out of the ashes of the one you've left. It's a recent release and available in most formats. (And as I said, Nora is also queer, and in the book's "present" has started dating a cute and resourceful girl named Iris; while I'm not requesting anything centered on them as such, I'd be delighted to have their relationship feature in a story. They're adorable together.)
Just made a belated promo post over this-a-way.
Wayfarers Series - Becky Chambers
Requested characters: Sidra, Tak, Pepper, Owl
This one might be a little borderline, at least as far as my chosen characters go? Tak is an Aeluon, a humanoid alien species with more than two genders. Ze is a shon, and physically changes between female, male, and something in-between in regular cycles; queer by our human standards, but not necessarily by zir's. Several of my requests center around zir helping Sidra, an AI who spends canon struggling to integrate with her illegal android body (an installation she was not designed for) and find meaning in her existence, explore sexuality/romance (something that the character doesn't show much interest in within the text, although her previous iteration, installed in a spaceship, had been in a relationship with a human man).
The four-volume Wayfarers series in general is full of queerness, and features several queer couples (notably Rosemary Harper/Sissix Seshkethet in the first volume, and Isabel/Tamsin in the third). It's a space opera with tons of heart, and each book has a mostly-independent cast and stands alone well. I highly, highly recommend it.
Unwell: A Midwestern Gothic Mystery (podcast)
Requested characters: Joey, Lillian “Lily” Harper, Stella “Spikes” Cabrera
In this fabulous, creepy but also surprisingly warm and moving serial about a small town filled with eldritch secrets and conspiracy, Lily Harper, the prodigal daughter of the local boarding house's eccentric and beloved proprietor, is a queer woman who dates the (female) owner of the local record store, whose teen niece and aspiring audio/video producer Spikes visits on holidays and during the summer. Spikes' best friend Joey ... was also Lily's childhood best friend, and hasn't aged a day.
My requests for this fandom aren't really oriented towards queer identity or relationships as such, so much as history repeating itself and parallel narratives and ghosts? But I am interested in first crushes and the way best friends can develop an undercurrent of possibility for more! And anyway I definitely rec the podcast; it's wonderful.
Sex Education (tv)
Requested character: Lily Iglehart
Lily is a marvelous weirdo, obsessed with aliens and the creator of such things as a long-running, pornographic personal writing project (mostly prose, sometimes comics) and an over-the-top sexualized glam rock musical adaptation of Romeo & Juliet. She is also in a relationship with another girl, the adorable Ola Nyman. My request this year is entirely Lily-centric; I want to read about her continuing to pursue her fabulous xenophilic creative endeavors and real-life roleplay to her heart's content, whether with Ola or in other contexts/relationships.
This absurd and delightful tv show (three seasons on Netflix) features a wide variety of relationship configurations, and featured two nonbinary characters in its third season!