dear yuletide writer 2009

[eisoj5]

Hi, writer! It's that time again, and I cannot wait to see what you come up with! Please know that I will be very happy just to have a story in any of these three fandoms, regardless of whether or not you are able to use my prompt ideas.

General fanfic likes/dislikes:

I love stories that mess around with perspective, with time, with expectations. I prefer plot, but I like character vignettes, too. I enjoy reading long descriptive passages; I like quick, challenging dialogue. I'm fond of allusions to other works, related or not, but detailed references to canon are also welcome.

I would prefer nothing very explicit or crack-tastic, though!

Indiana Jones universe (movies)

I'd love to see something about an archaeological expedition that features nothing supernatural or extraordinary whatsoever. Surely Indy must have conducted a plain, boring field school for his own research at some point, right? Not that field school is ever *boring*, especially when Marion is involved...

Okay, I totally love the Indy movies, but here's the thing: I teach archaeology to students from fourth grade on up, and I teach very specifically that the way Indiana Jones treats the field is seriously unscientific and highly glamorized for the sake of Hollywood (um, duh!) In fact, there's a very amusing commentary on that very subject here. So I would really love a story about Dr. Jones doing completely ordinary archaeology things, like running a field school or just fricking writing a report, either as he was coming up as a professor or after he and Marion are married. I love Indy for his mixture of world-weariness and enthusiasm; I love Marion for her forthrightness and general determination.

I would prefer that Mutt be off at school somewhere and not attempting to take over his father's role. :) Oh, and please, dear writer, no aliens. (It breaks my X-Phile-y heart to write that, but still.)

Better Off Ted

Any mixture of these characters (plus or minus Ted himself) would be great. What kind of absurd-yet-mildly-functional thing do Phil and Lem invent next, and how do the others react this time?

Phil and Lem are the awesomest duo I've seen on TV in a long while. I love the way they bounce their arguments around, and the way they come up with increasingly disastrous (or useful) technologies. I especially loved Phil helping Lem out in “Racial Sensitivity” (and that's my favorite episode, too.) I'm not totally certain if I'd prefer them slashed or not, though. I like Linda and Veronica a lot, too, though not as a couple; their opposing functions as the angel and devil (sort of, that's not the greatest metaphor here, sorry) on Ted's shoulders are really interesting when they then get enmeshed in whatever Phil and Lem actually came up with.

Journeyman

Livia, to me, was one of the greatest things about Journeyman. What was her life like, before and after she started jumping around in time; how did her success in the future dovetail with a more repressive environment in the past? How did her (I'm presuming Chinese-American) ethnic background affect her perception of what life was like in the future?

This one is somewhat more personal to me, so I understand if you don't want to take that on and write something else. I was really REALLY excited to see a woman of Asian descent in such an important and central role on Journeyman. Livia was beautiful, and smart, and she was mysterious—but she was mysterious not because she was Asian, but because she was supposed to be DEAD and then she was a TIME TRAVELER, OMG! And over the course of the show, it struck me that being with Dan in a future where she could become a District Attorney must have been very different than living in the 1940s, where that path would be closed to her.

I should mention that I was rooting for Dan/Livia all along, too. Not that I didn't like Katie, I just liked Livia a lot better :D