yuletide | 2022 Yuletide Promo Post

Welcome to the Fandom Promo post, everyone!

Here's where you get those eyes on your fandoms for sign-ups!

Share what makes your Yuletide fandoms the shiniest and why you love them. A big part of Yuletide is how small our fandoms can be, and this is a good way to make sure other people know what gems there are out there!

NEW: We've made a register! There is now a searchable Google spreadsheet index of the canons promoted on this post. Go ahead and add yours or any you see that are missing! We hope this helps connect people up with canons of interest to them.

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Title:
Please put your fandom's title in the subject of your comment, too. This helps people find your promo again.

Media:

Approx length:

Where to find it:
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What is it, in summary?:

What do you love about it?:

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?:

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?:

Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence):
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(Bonus options: What are you thinking of requesting for this? If you're thinking of nominating worldbuilding, what sort of worldbuilding topics might people explore?)

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Previous fandom promo posts can be found at this tag!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Title: Devil in Ohio

Media: TV show

Approx length: 8 episodes, of ~45 minutes each; total runtime ~6 hours

Where to find it: streaming on netflix (it's a netflix original series)

What is it, in summary?: Devil in Ohio is a suspense thriller limited series, based on a book by the same name. To quote wikipedia for a rather dry but serviceable plot summary:

"Mae, a teenager with an inverted pentagram carved into her back, shows up in an Ohio hospital. Her case sparks the interest of hospital psychiatrist Dr. Suzanne Mathis, who offers to put the girl up in her home while looking for a suitable foster family. It's soon discovered that Mae escaped a devil-worshipping cult in the rural neighboring county. Authorities have long tried to investigate the cult, but have been blocked by religious freedom issues and a fiercely protective county sheriff. It's not long before Mae's presence causes upheaval in the Mathis family."

What do you love about it?: I love Suzanne, and I love Emily Deschanel (who plays Suzanne), and I love psychological horror. I especially love TV mini-series that actually tell a complete story in a limited amount of time, so this series worked extremely well for me. I don't want to over-sell it; reviews tend to agree that it's a pretty standard plot with standard execution and that it doesn't do anything especially remarkable with any of its characters or plot elements. If this plot isn't in your strike zone, you will probably find it to be an afternoon's passable diversion and not think about it again. If the plot is squarely in your strike zone -- as it was for me -- the series may make you (by which I mean me) temporarily insane.

Again: I love Suzanne. She's this uniquely broken person who cares too much and firmly believes that she has addressed and healed from her own trauma. She has not. She's simply managed to avoid being in a situation that hits her trauma from the right angle to open it all back up again -- until she meets Mae, who she clearly sees herself in, so obviously believing that if she can help Mae, save Mae, it'll make all the difference in how no one helped her, back when she was the one in a similar position. Suzanne puts helping Mae before every other aspect of her life: her career, her family, her physical well-being, to an extent which is quite frankly completely insane and therefore fascinating.

Personally, I enjoyed the rest of the cast and found the scenes that didn't include Suzanne or Mae to be perfectly entertaining, but I do think the show shines the most when Suzanne or Mae are on-screen. Mae is the other high point. Her friendship with Suzanne's daughter, Jules, is super interesting and everything about Mae is just slightly uncanny and off-putting, in the best possible way. Her actress did a great job portraying her character and I love how you can never quite be sure whether she really is acting out of good intentions and it's simply that her upbringing has twisted her perspective on the world, or whether she does understand enough to be deliberately manipulative.

This mini-series doesn't tell a unique story, I will admit that much, but it talks about cycles of trauma and how different people deal with them in a way that works so, so well for me, and I will enthusiastically, eagerly pitch it on that count alone, to anyone who might find that a compelling draw. I think the fact that it does more than good enough, while not doing a perfect job with this theme, is actually points in favor, because it's exactly that sort of imperfection that sparks the part of my brain that wants to create and consume fanwork for a piece of media.

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: The #1 thing I want above all else is post-series fic digging into the choice Suzanne makes toward the end, about Mae. Leaving that vague, because a functional spoiler tag is beyond me, but oh? My god? Oh my god???? The fic of my heart would have romanti-sexual overtones in either or both directions and I WILL expand on that in my yuletide letter but they just... Have a completely not normal or healthy level of attachment to each other and it makes me absolutely insane. Beyond that, I'm really satisfied with the series as a whole and so all I really want is Suzanne or Mae character study, of any sort, at any point in the timeline. I also like Jules and Detective Lopez a lot but I truly am putting all my eggs in the Suzanne and/or Mae basket, I will be honest.

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: Nah, it's a mini-series so, while it's definitely not a five-minute fandom, it can be knocked out in an afternoon or a weekend, if you have the ~6 hours to spare. It's the kind of show where watching any parts out of context just wouldn't land with the correct weight. The thing I want most out of my requests also reeeeally requires that you finish the series, since it's about the absolutely bonkers-to-me ending, so you've gotta watch the whole thing if you'd like to join me in this sandbox.

Content warnings: The rating is cited as being for "violence, child abuse, and self-harm" and I would personally say that the child abuse and trauma elements are what's most vividly and extensively portrayed, of the show's potentially-upsetting content. You may wish to tread carefully, spoil yourself with episode summaries, or give the show a pass, if you are especially sensitive to those themes. On the violence count, I would say that it's more controlled/pre-planned than sudden and unpredictable, if that distinction is useful to you. That said, while some actions may be controlled and planned in advance in-world and while I don't think anything hits a jumpscare note, those things can still be thrown at the viewer kind of fast.

2022 Yuletide Promo Post

Rec: Devil in Ohio (TV show, 2022)