2021 Mistletoe Exchange Letter

[anabelissima]

Hello, dear author! I'm Anabel. I'm so psyched that we share one of these fandoms, and I'm so excited to see what you create! :)

Quick-jumps to fandom sections
Kim's Convenience (TV) || Marvel Cinematic Universe (aka Shang-Chi) || Actor RPF

What I most love to read about in fic is people who are happy, or in the process of becoming happy. This could mean having adventures, or falling in love, or being fulfilled in their career, or snuggling in bed with their partner, or fighting sky-pirates from outer space. Or perhaps all of these things in the same fanwork! This doesn’t necessarily mean unrelieved fluff – I’m a big fan of plot, smut, and adventures as well – but a focus on a character’s melancholy inner doubts (for instance), or on infidelity and betrayal and pain, wouldn’t appeal to me. I am absolutely addicted to happy endings. (Or "happy for now," in canons where outright happy endings are implausible!)

DNWs: eye injury, vomiting, infidelity, miscarriages, child or animal harm, noncon or dubcon, death of a requested character, underage (under 16), mentions of dick size, virgin characters, people being cornered and yelled at (they can be yelled at as long as they would be able to escape if they want/needed to), women being victimized by men without being able to fight back, women being denied agency, setting-divergence AUs (aka modern AUs, different-profession AUs, a/b/o, etc.), transphobia or anti-trans characters (even if condemned in narrative). [I welcome any of my requested characters being trans, but for personal reasons please don't have any conflict in the fic have to do with their transness.]

General note: Any and all prompts in this letter, whether general or fandom-specific, are only ideas! If nothing here inspires you, please feel free to use your own ideas. As long as you don't hit a DNW, I seriously will not mind.

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GENERAL PROMPTS:

• Friends-to-lovers
• Relationships that are chock-full of affection and intimacy and friendship
• Hijinks
• Mysteries (of any size & depth)
• Witness/outsider POV
• People having to think about balancing their duty with their personal happiness.
• Five-times fic
• Chubby and/or fat people, with their size treated respectfully and (if focused on in porn) joyfully
• Going on a journey together! Both the fun parts (picnics! snuggling for warmth!) and the inconvenient parts (ants at picnics! someone comes down with a cold! someone breaks an ankle and they are stranded until rescue arrives, and various confessions of love/criminality/background/etc. are made in the meantime!)
• Falling in love with a rogue
• Gentleness, patience, and/or sweetness being attribute(s) that attract one person to another
• Kick-ass, competent women
• Giving a lover symbolic jewelry
• Secret identities
• Soulmates, whether played straight, subverted, or complicated in some way
• Otherness and outsider status
• Happy, fluffy first-time fic (first-time for a particular ship or for a particular sex act, not virginity)
• Twist endings (I love The Queen's Thief series, for example)
• People falling in love who don't share a language and have to communicate in other ways
• People from different cultures falling in love
• People making food together; detailed descriptions of delicious food welcome but not required
• A person having a nightmare and being comforted by their lover afterwards
• Same-sex lovers who are 'hiding in plain sight' in a non-accepting society (whether they're pretty blatant and the society 'pretends' not to notice, or whether they're truly excellent at hiding & it amuses them to pull the wool over everybody's eyes)
• Canon-divergence AUs

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SMUT LIKES:

• Most important: that everyone is having a helluva good time and fully consenting.
• Couples who are friends as well as lovers. Friendly banter, cuddling, just the general sense that both really like each other as well as wanting to tear each other’s clothes off.
• People who can't stay quiet during sex; dirty talk, moaning, little cut-off noises, reverent invocation of the lover’s name, distracted chattering, all of it!
• Women taking the lead in bed, anywhere on the spectrum between just In Charge to all the way femdom.
• Morning cuddles and/or sex.
• Silly/fun sex roleplaying.
• One partner reading to the other one in bed, which eventually gets abandoned in favor of sex.
• Eager cunnilingus – a giver who is not only super into it for their partner’s sake, but super turned on by the experience of giving it.
• Multiple orgasms, including but not limited to the point of exhaustion. Also orgasm imbalance – aka one partner gets a lot, the other only gets the one – as long as all parties enjoy this dynamic. And orgasm delay – being turned-on all day, and just having to wait, and probably interact with other people and pretend to be normal, and then eventually finally get back to the bedroom…
• Both penetrative and not-penetrative sex! Sex for me definitely doesn’t have to include penetration. I also enjoy that too, but a less-conventional progression in bed is always something I’ll like.
• One partner deliberately turning on the other partner in public, especially if there's a reason they can't immediately get alone together and down to business. The teasing and heightened anticipation = A+.
• Strong people and athletic prowess, and that strength being a big turn-on in bed.
• Wall sex.
• Bathing together, and/or bathing one’s lover.
• Undressing one’s lover after a ball or fancy event; could also lead to urgent, half-clothed sex, which I also greatly enjoy.
• Face-sitting.
• Bodyswap for a day.
• Hurt/comfort, with the “hurt” only minor and the focus on the comfort. “Sprained ankle” side of the spectrum, definitely not “brutal beating” side.
• Happiness and laughter – in general, and also during sex.
• Sex that doesn’t go as planned/sexual mishaps (preferably ones that don’t have any exceptional or lasting effects, and with everything eventually ending happily)
• Tipsy sex in an established relationship
• Reunion sex
• Characters being walked in on during sex (treated comically, no angst/violence/etc.)
• “Nowadays-Vanilla sex things” being treated as transgressive and the transgression kinked on; I’m not actually into many seriously transgressive things, but I love the dynamic of pushing taboos, if that makes sense. In the historical eras and cultures of some canons, even things like cunnilingus or non-missionary positions might be “transgressive” according to their contemporary social norms (and/or according to an inexperienced character). I love the dynamic of one or both of the characters feeling Super Daring at pushing the boundaries/disobeying a taboo, and (whatever the taboo is) being an amazing experience for both.
• “Missing porn scenes”. Any missing scenes from a canon that were actually porn interludes.

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Here are the fandoms and characters I'm requesting for Mistletoe Exchange this year:

Kim’s Convenience (TV) – Kimchee Han/Jung Kim
Marvel Cinematic Universe (aka Shang-Chi) – Katy Chen/Xu Xialing, Katy Chen/Xu Shang-Chi
Actor RPF - Eiza González/Simu Liu, Simu Liu/Trevor Noah

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Fandom 1:Kim’s Convenience (TV)
My Requested Ship: Kimchee Han/Jung Kim

This show. THIS SHOW. I find it immensely frustrating at times, especially now that we know the behind-the-scenes drama and how hard the Asian actors were fighting to get the overwhelmingly-white production and writing room to listen to them, to improve the show, and to give it a strong future. To have it be cancelled out of nowhere when Ins Choi walked away, even though it had already been renewed and was nowhere near a stopping point, and even though the actors were begging for a chance to take it over and run it themselves for a wonderful final season, is just so – GAH. (To get a feel for the cast's POV, see Simu Liu's short, heartfelt comments in this interview.)

But despite all that frustration, I still love this show to death. Particularly the first two seasons, before some of the character development stagnated or went backwards. And fanfic is where we can do our best to fix these sorts of things anyways! :)

So! I have requested one ship: Kimchee/Jung. Feel free to bring in other characters, especially the other Kims, but also anyone else in the show if they fit your story! I am also a sucker for Jung & Appa moments, if that’s something that sparks a chord for you as well.

I especially enjoy Jung in the first couple of seasons, before he kind of goes backwards and the writers kneecap his character development a few times, but a later-season Jung would work too (particularly if your Jung’s character development is less stagnant than the show’s version).

Prompts (in addition to my general & smut likes at the beginning of this letter):

Jung tells himself that the reason he’s currently in a dry spell is because he’s still crushing on Shannon, who’s dating Alejandro. But he’s gradually beginning to realize that maybe it has something to do with the weird thoughts he’s been having about Kimchee lately…

Jung and Kimchee run into each other in a gay club and it’s awkward. Until it’s not.

Jung ruins another of Kimchee’s dates by being Hot Jung, and a mock-fight/play-wrestling after the debacle turns into something more.

Jung and Kimchee theme their Halloween outfits, and only when all of Handy compliments them on their couples’ costumes does Jung realize that Handy thinks they’re dating. He’s never thought of it before and it does weird things to his stomach.

< li>Kimchee somehow brings about a reconciliation between Jung & Appa. Best boyfriend ever!

One of the other Kims works together with either Jung or Kimchee to create a surprise for the other. (Established relationship Kimchee/Jung, or get-together fic!)

Jung and Kimchee have to share a hotel bed on a work trip. It should be totally fine, but Jung is just right there being ridiculously hot and it’s driving Kimchee crazy.

Jung and Kimchee get stuck in the supply closet at Handy, remember the time Shannon & Alejandro were hooking up in there, and start joking/horsing around – only it turns into making out for reals.

Kimchee has finally surrendered to the inevitability of the fact that he has a crush on Jung. He thinks he’s doing a good job of hiding it, but then Appa gives him the gay discount. Now Jung is looking at Kimchee weird, and Kimchee is trying not to look at Jung, and Appa is making Appa comments…

The various ways the Kim family members (and/or the Handy team) find out that Jung and Kimchee have started dating. Like, does Janet figure it out because Jung's room is too clean, almost like he's not sleeping in his own bed? Does Umma find new naked pictures while tidying up Jung & Kimchee's apartment? Does Appa catch an unguarded hair ruffle after a soccer game? Does Jung or Kimchee have a cute picture of the other/a couple picture as their lockscreen, or does a photo pop up in their photos gallery, like the time Appa saw all those photos on Jung's laptop? (We even have a candidate for a good photo!)

Jung is canonically a lady magnet, but Kimchee is the first guy he's dated or slept with. Is he shy at all? Fronting with bravado? What are the differences? And how does Kimchee help him adjust?

Way back at the beginning of the show, before Appa even knows where Jung is, Kimchee starts acting weird. Appa eventually gets him to confess that he’s dating a guy and he wasn’t sure Appa would approve, but even Appa assuring him that he’s not homophobic (a la the gay discount episode) and he should bring his boyfriend around doesn’t seem to be making Kimchee more comfortable. How can Appa fix this, and what happens when he learns exactly who Kimchee’s boyfriend is?

Five times Jung & Kimchee almost got walked in on, and one time they did.

Of all people, it’s Appa that tells Jung he has a crush on Kimchee and he should make his move. (Jung probably doesn’t take that well, but actually…)

A “what if?”/followup to any episode with great Jung & Kimchee friendship content, that tweaks it or expands it so it becomes something more.

This is sort of a crossover idea, but Simu is a writer as well as an actor and both he and Andrew were super into the Jungchee bromance (and comfortable/playful with fans talking about shipping it as well). At one point, Simu was talking about wanting to write a Kim's spec episode, and when a fan asked if it was the one "where Jungchee go from bromantic to romantic," Simu liked the tweet. So I think it'd be really fun to see a fic where Simu DID write that episode, and Kim's Convenience went a whole different direction! I don't ship Simu & Andrew (and Andrew is happily married), but I think they'd have had a lot of fun filming that, so it'd be fun to see a "RL bromance playing fictional romance" kind of vibe.

Any other way you can think of to get Jungchee together! There is literally only one fic for this ship, and it's really good but I am GREEDY and want ALL the fic. ♥

But honestly, any story you dream up that has Jungchee will make me blissfully happy. :)

Canon DNWs:

Jung not being attracted to Kimchee because he's chubby. It's okay if Kimchee is worried about that a little, but not if it's true. I would love a fic where Jung is as thoroughly attracted to Kimchee as Kimchee is to him.

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Fandom 2: MCU (aka Shang-Chi)
My Requested Ships: Katy Chen/Xu Xialing, Katy Chen/Xu Shang-Chi

SPOILERS FOR SHANG-CHI IN THIS PROMPT, PLEASE SKIP IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT

Shang-Chi took me by storm and utterly charmed me. I love everything about it, its characters, and its universe, and I adore the three characters I’ve requested so much.

I ship Katy with both Xialing and Shang-Chi, but not as a threesome or love triangle, and not in the same fic. I want Katy to be great friends with whatever Xu sibling she is not dating. :) And if you don’t ship Katy with either, I would also enjoy a story about the deep and intimate friendship she has with Shang-Chi, and/or the new one she is starting to forge with Xialing.

Katy/Xialing

I love how they have such fantastic charisma and basically start flirting the moment they meet, how Xialing saves Katy's life on the scaffolding and Katy returns the favor in the final battle, how both of them break out of the molds that their societies try to place them in and find their own path. I love what big fans they are of each other, and how they bond through this epic experience, and how they both save the world. I want to know how they might get together, and how they might face their future side-by-side.

Some ideas (in addition to my general & smut likes at the beginning of this letter):

Katy doesn't fit into her old world any longer. She starts texting with Xialing, wondering if she too feels out of place, and Things Go From There.

Xialing is busy reinventing the Ten Rings. She reaches out to Katy to do the graphic design for her website, but says she can't tell Shang-Chi. Katy's not good at secrets, or at keeping her rapidly-growing crush under wraps...

Katy and Xialing have a lot of humming adrenalin left over from the final battle. They find each other and burn it off.

Katy introduces her girlfriend Xialing to her family or Soo.

How does Shang-Chi find out that his sister and BFF are dating? Does he walk in on them? Catch a flirty text? Find them kissing in a karaoke booth? Notice Xialing's clothes in Katy's room?

Katy, Xialing, Shang-Chi, and an Avenger of your choice (any gender) go out for dinner. Gradually, Shang-Chi realizes that Katy (or Xialing) has set him up on a date. And then the 4th person says something that makes him realize it's a double date and he's been missing something right in front of his face.

Five ways Katy could have fallen in love with Xialing, and one way she did. (Or Xialing with Katy.)

Katy/Shang-Chi

I adore the close, intimate friendship these two have with each other, and the warm lived-in feel to their intimacy. It’s palpable how deeply they care about each other, and while I love the gen version of that friendship, I’d love to see it develop into something more. I really like the interpretation that the move from friends to lovers was never possible before because they both knew, consciously or subconsciously, that Shaun was holding something back; now that the truth has been laid bare and they have no secrets from each other, the next dimension of their relationship has become possible.

Some ideas (in addition to my general & smut likes at the beginning of this letter):

How do they take that fateful first step? Who’s the brave one?

Katy thinks back to that intense, wary young teenager she first befriended and the happy, carefree young man he became, and watches the grieving, burdened superhero she sometimes feels she scarcely knows. How does she reconcile the three Shauns, and when/how does he become the one who wakes from nightmares in her arms?

What does the post-movie landscape look like for them? Obviously their jobs are toast. But what do they tell Katy’s family, for example, and what does Katy’s family think of the fact that she ran off to Macao with Shaun for a couple weeks? Do they try to get new jobs, or has Xialing and/or the Avengers set them up with a salary? And how do they negotiate the new dimensions to their relationship in the meantime?

Three times Katy almost kissed Shang-Chi, and one time she did.

Outside perspective on their relationship – any character except Trevor.

Shang-Chi and/or Katy playing with the rings in the bedroom.

After their intense and emotional conversation by the lake, Katy seeks Shaun out later for some wordless comfort snuggles, in the darkness before the dawn and Wenwu's impending arrival. However, one thing leads to another...

Shang-Chi processing the fact that he nearly lost Katy (twice - once on the scaffolding and then in the Battle of Ta-Lo), and realizing just how much she means to him. But can she possibly feel the same way?

Some ideas for either ship

I am all here for canon-divergence AUs! Maybe Shang-Chi insists on sharing the rings with Xialing, so they each have five and all three of them go to the conference with Wong (with Katy dating either sibling). Maybe Shang-Chi died trying to protect their mother, and it was Xialing who Wenwu trained and Xialing who ended up on the run in San Francisco and befriending (and then dating) Katy. Maybe Wenwu lived, and Katy ends up living in the Ten Rings compound for a while as Xialing and Shang-Chi are trying to rebuild their family and delicately make sure their father isn't going to become a supervillain again anytime soon. (How might an emboldened Katy talk to Wenwu about how he treats the woman she's falling in love with? And does Wenwu guess her secret?)

Canon-specific DNWs:

Shang-Chi being a sheltered virgin or de-masculinized in any way. I’ve seen this interpretation popping up here and there in fandom because he is not in a relationship in the film, and I feel like it plays into stereotypes about Asian men and into problematic approaches to masculinity more generally. Please have Shang-Chi, Katy, and Xialing all be experienced and confident in their sexuality.

Please no mention of the fan theory that the gang leader Shang-Chi killed at fourteen was actually Katy’s grandfather.

Please no Razor Fist (except as a background enforcer role for Wenwu or Xialing).

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Fandom 3: Actor RPF
My Requested Ships: Eiza González/Simu Liu, Simu Liu/Trevor Noah

These are just two super-cute ships (in my opinion) that I would love to see meet-cutes, flirting, first kisses, first dates, and first times for. In neither case am I expecting a whole lot of delving into their actual personal lives (in fact that would be a turnoff), but just their public personas and the approximate hotness quotient of 1000.

Eiza/Simu:

This is the Met Gala ship! In case you missed it, they both were extremely hot at the Met Gala, and when Eiza was on the red carpet being photographed, one of the photographs caught Simu in the background accidentally doing the RL manifestation of That Meme.

Both of them laughed a lot about it on social media after the Gala, and of course being the shipper that I am, I immediately craved a fic in which they did a little more than laugh about it.

I would love a fic in which Eiza slid into Simu’s DMs and asked him out. Or one where they actually hooked up at/after the Met Gala, before they even found out about the picture at all, and only later found out about it! In either case, give me aaaaaaallllllll the flirting and banter and cuteness, and outfit porn (because, like I said, they were both extremely fucking hot at that Gala) would be amazing.

I would also totally be here for Eiza becoming part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and being Shang-Chi’s love interest in the Shang-Chi sequel or in an Avengers movie Shang-Chi was in. Bonus points for them dating and being super cute on set together.

I am interested in light smut for this pairing as well (just see my note on ratings for RPF).

Simu Liu/Trevor Noah:

Let me be candid here: there's no canon support for this pairing at all. I don’t even think they’ve ever met. I just get the sense from the two of them, however, that if they DID meet they would totally hit it off, and I'd love to see them Hit It Off as well. :D

I would love to see a fic in which Simu went on the Daily Show (to promote Shang-Chi, or the movie he’s currently filming, One True Loves, or the next Shang-Chi, or an Avengers movie he’s starring in, or – you get the picture!) and him and Trevor spent the whole time flirting, and then one of them stole a kiss in the green room afterwards. (Or more!)

Or maybe one of them slides into the other’s DMs to “ask a question” about something, and things go from there!

Or maybe Ronny Chieng is the one who introduces them to each other, whether he is deliberately matchmaking, accidentally matchmaking and comically horrified when they start flirting, or clueless (and only finds out later). [I love Ronny!]

Like for Eiza/Simu, I would love cuteness, flirting, banter, and light smut for this pairing. Also if Trevor wants to make a cameo in one of Simu’s projects, I would never say no to that!

Canon DNWs:

For RPF, I’m not comfortable with explicit fic. A low-M level is absolutely fine and in fact I'd love it – kissing, making out, necking, clothed grinding, lusting over and/or caressing abs, fade-to-black bed scenes, etc. It's just the outright explicit fic that's the line for me. And please no physical descriptions of dicks, it really squicks me in this context.

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Thank you again, dear author! ♥ If you have any questions for me, feel free to ask them through the mods (or if it’s before signups close, you can ask them in the comments below!) Alternatively, you can message my friend polkadot, who knows my preferences & fandom feels extremely well at this point. :)