DYW 2016
Dear, dear Yuletide Writer,
Thank you SO MUCH for offering to write in one of these fandoms. You are clearly a person of discernment and taste, and I am absolutely going to love whatever you write! I am a very easy person to please, so please write a story that makes you happy, above all. I’m going to give you some ideas about the sort of thing I enjoy, in the hopes that it might be helpful, but no pressure -- disregard everything that follows if it causes more stress rather than less!
First of all, I'd really be happy with any of these fandoms -- any of them would make for a seriously exciting gift, so don't read into the differing space I spend talking about my various requests! If we're inauspiciously paired somehow and you want to get acquainted with a new fandom, Crimson Peak is just a movie (albeit a kind of scary gory one, so your mileage may vary), and all the books read very quick, though Society of Gents is technically three books.
I’ve traditionally leaned toward stories that feature romance, but this year, probably because two of my fandoms are romance novels, I’m kind of rooting for gen, or maintaining the established relationships. I love my ships and but I especially love affection and deep bonds and how relationships grow and change, and those things can manifest themselves in lots of different ways! To write friendship well is its own amazing and wonderful talent.
Here is where I usually copy-paste the same list of things I enjoy in fic, which is definitely skewed toward happy-ending kind of fandoms like SoG or Georgette Heyer-- but if you matched with me on Crimson Peak, you can basically disregard any of this. I don't need a fluffy domesticity Crimson Peak fic, believe you me! (Though even in a darker story I'm still interested in dialogue, edges of canon, documents-based fic, etc. But the tone can be as dark as all get out, no worries there, FUCK ME UP.) But anyway, here's the usual rundown:
Some humor, even within a ‘serious’ fic. If you can write crisp banter, lay it on me! If you can’t, that’s okay, neither can I really. Dialogue is my favorite part of any fic, especially if you can nail a voice. I really, really love how KJ Charles and Georgette Heyer write Regency-speak and their use of slang.
Domesticity! I adore slice-of-life missing-moments stuff, because I think it’s awesome when romance or character emerges out of the mundane. I love the little things -- the details. And I'm the kind of person who is really bad at giving fic prompts because they're always like MAKE THEM BAKE A CAKE TOGETHER! Or THEY SHOULD GO ON A ROAD TRIP! (These are just goofy examples, but Julius and Silas should definitely go on another road trip.)
The edges of canon -- backstory, first-meeting first-time first-love, post-canon. I like feeling like time has passed.
Happy endings. I’m basically made of marshmallow, and sometimes enjoy fluffy stories as long as they’re not, you know, EMBARRASSINGLY nauseatingly sweet. Nothing has to be unremittingly cheerful all the way through - I like conflict and complex emotions and serious feelings and Reasons We Can't Be Together hugely - but to end on an optimistic note would be nice! It’s Christmas. (Holiday stories are fine but not necessary, by the way. I have to admit, Christmas at Allerdale Hall is a weird but pretty beguiling notion. DARK CHRISTMAS AT DA PEAK)
I guess I have a few idiosyncratic things that I like, not that I need them all to be present. I love getting to read characters' mail/emails/texts/tweets/telegrams/diaries/g-chat conversations/notes passed in classrooms. I love scenes depicting eating (esp. breakfast). I love dancing. Bickering. These are all so optional that it's silly, but I figure too much information is always better than too little. You can throw out whatever's not helpful.
I don’t really love:
Character bashing, especially when the character is female. Slut shaming, also.
PWP. Sex is awesome, totally love it (especially when it’s character-driven and character-specific), but it’s the dessert, you know? Not the main course. And of course you don’t have to write sex at all if you don’t want.
Really kinky shit, non-con, character death - the usual. Humiliation gives me a lot of vicarious embarrassment. I’m not really into hurt/comfort narratives. (I should add that I'm okay with character death, incest, and whatever dubcon seems necessary to depicting Lucille's past, if you matched with me on Crimson Peak. Again, FUCK ME UP.)
Unremitting woe-is-me angst.
As you may have noticed, my journal is locked down, but feel free to check out the few things I've written for the AO3 (or don’t, lolol). My public internet presence these days is mostly limited to my tumblr (mostly pop cultural gifs, but whatever).
Society of Gentlemen - K.J. Charles
Julius Norreys, Silas Mason, David Cyprian
Would love to see these dudes have to pull off some sort of scheme or caper off together (again)--especially love the Silas & Julius dynamic and am dying for more of their irascibility and reluctant respect and total competence. Love all the other gents as well--couldn't choose between Richard or Dom for my fourth pick, but happy to see them involved too.
How will I live without more Society of Gentlemen novels? How will I ever go on? Probably by requesting fic for yuletide for the rest of my life. These novels are SO GOOD-sexy, yes, but the characters! They’re so vivid and well drawn and FUNNY and distinct and Regency to the fucking hilt. And they have so many PROBLEMS THEY HAVE TO SOLVE AS A TEAM!!!
Though I love every Ricardian and all their scandalously working-class boyfriends too, three guys I requested are my extra-special favorites, and perhaps it won’t be too mysterious why: these three are the problem-solviest of the bunch.
In my heart I judge myself for it, but I don’t think there’s a single SoG character I adore more than Julius “Did I Mention He’s a Former Cavalry Officer” Norreys. Julius! He’s so witty and MEAN but he gets shit done and he’s got a giant soft spot for his twin and Richard and HARRY and best of all: he’s so goddamn competent. One of my favorite moments in Seditious Affair is when Silas is missing, Harry and Dom are freaking out, and Julius has to patiently ask questions and solve the case like a blonde fop-detective. He just contains so many multitudes. So many opinions (no gilt buttons, or kissing). So many grim war memories. Apparently he cried in Richard’s arms after his brother died. JULIUS!!! He’s the sort of dude who would save you from a crisis while insulting you the entire time, and yet your heart would still be warmed because he cares. Imagine how funny it would be if his hair got wet at an inopportune moment.
I love Silas and Cyprian a whole lot too. What can I even say about Silas apart from the obvious? He’s a rough diamond. Nonjudgmental, a giant softie underneath all the grizzle. I totally understand why keeping him out of trouble is the impetus of so much of the trilogy. Remember when he thinks that Richard has done something terrible to David and he goes off all I’LL FIGHT YOUR BOSS, I’LL FIGHT MY BOSS, WHERE IS HE, JEREMY BENTHAM WOULD NOT STAND FOR THIS SHIT. Ugh. Yes.
Cyprian is obviously NOT a secret softie like my other two faves, but he does amorality really well, and he and Richard have the size kink thing going (remember when Richard picked Cyprian up and held him against the wall, just checking), and the red hair and the yelling and the demanding of respect and HOW MUCH HE LOVES HIS MOM!!!
I’m a little embarrassed at how much capslock I’m doing in this letter thus far.
Anyway, a couple of my dream fics: I would love to see the missing scene from A Gentleman’s Affair when Julius and Silas have to go on a ROAD TRIP to find David and bring him back so he can solve all the problems. What did they talk about? What did they eat? God, can you imagine? Fancy pants and sans culotte, on the road. Into it forever. I would also love some sort of new post-canon team caper to keep the Ricardians out of the stocks or solvent or in good odor with the ton. While I listed my three faves, I love the whole team, especially Richard, Dom, Zoe, Will, Jon… the more the merrier, but no pressure to include every single person.
Crimson Peak (2015)
Lucille Sharpe
Love Lucille, will read anything about her--backstory about childhood or the previous wives, POV during the film, post-canon where she doesn't die, relationship stuff with Thomas--but my favorite thing of all is Lucille/Edith, as messed up and dreamy and well dressed as you can write it.
BEWARE OF FEELINGS ABOUT CRIMSON PEAK, said the ghost of my dead-leaf-wrapped heart after I watched this movie a year ago.
I haven't connected with such a cultural object in a long, long time, so I'll try to keep this coherent instead of just a bunch of all-caps keysmashes, interspersed with the name LUCILLE, repeated over and over into infinity. But yeah I have a Lucille Sharpe problem. I received a really amazing CP fic last year but I will never like satisfied, much like Lucille herself AMIRITE.
It's very odd for me to request just one character, but the thing is, I don't have any total attachment to when this story is set. I think backstory with Thomas or Mother or the baby or one of the pre-Edith wives would be great-something really granular and detailed instead of the elusive little peeks we see. I think movie-era fic that involves Edith would ALSO be great. Lucille is all I ask, something that delves into her subjectivity with precision and wit.
There's no need to domesticate her or make her overly sympathetic. I think the movie does a pretty good job of showing that her particular pathology is both the result of her victimization (those nasty parents of hers) AND a kind of cool appreciation of violence that is maybe just HERS. I'm down with all of that, and wouldn't want to see her painted worse than she is (as some sort of juvenile rapist of Thomas, for instance, though the power differential can certainly be played with) or better than she is (as having no control over her actions due to "madness" or thwarted maternal "instincts" or some such thing). Keep her complex and strange, if you can! She is destructive, but also needy for love and companionship; she is dangerous, but also lovely and feral. She has charm, and it's not all pretense.
Thomas, to my mind, is a bit of a wet blanket, and I'm not interested in a story that makes him the good one and Lucille the nasty piece of work. He's passive, and he uses her facility with murder to his own advantage while making sad faces, and when he said they could ALL be together, I was ready for her to stab him in his own wishy-washy face. You cannot, as Mallory Ortberg wrote so compellingly, be half-in your incestuous murder marriage, even if you are a Man and thus think that maybe you can have EVERY woman you care about in your life at once. Own your choices, sack up, pick a side, or get stabbed in the face, you know?
But I love Edith, and I love how oddly her relationship with Lucille plays out, with admiration and confusion and intensity and rage. Lucille wouldn't stab Edith like she stabs Thomas--gently, in his passive, hangdog face--she'd chase her with a knife across the snow, roaring. This movie seems to be about the marriage plot, but the real plot is happening between women: mothers, sisters (in-law), the ghosts of Edith's predecessors; here, Thomas is more pretext than prize. I guess this is my way of saying that I ship Lucille/Edith, BOY HOWDY DO I, and wouldn't mind if your story took an erotic tack in that directon, either partially (Edith/Lucille, but the ending is the same) or in a full-on AU (maybe Lucille lives and they instantiate a new kind of perversion at Crimson Peak--you know, lesbian murderwives instead of incestuous murderspouses). But you needn't go that road at all--give me her past, embellish on the movie, or create an imagined future, and all I will be able to say is GJEWAOIGLJEWALGKJAEWGILAWJGI;OJ LUCILLE LUCILLE LUCILLE.
Friday’s Child - Georgette Heyer
Gilbert Ringwood, Ferdinand Fakenham
I only listed Gil and Ferdy because I ship it so bad and am hoping that one day will write the story where the rest of their Best Friend Circle, led by Hero obviously, nudges the oblivious pair into outright romance. But I'd be just as happy with some ensemble gen, or whatever you’d like to do with these two. I can only imagine how George, Gil, and Ferdy are going to be involved when Sherry starts setting up his nursery. Scrapes, schemes, and capers heartily encouraged!
Speaking of teams: Friday’s Child is sort of my proto-Society of Gentlemen. Somewhat less gay, but all about a big ensemble Regency cast, 100% of whom are ridiculous. Sherry is one of my favorite Heyer heroes, not because he’s the sweetest, God knows, but because he’s the least competent: can’t shoot, can’t drive, can’t really maintain an air of dignity, but thinks he can do all these things. Of course, everyone else has their weaknesses too-George is reckless, Gil reserved, Ferdy clueless, and Hero magnetically attracted to trouble-but somehow they all balance each other out. I enjoy Hero and Sherry’s love story, but I reread this book time and time again to watch the whole group chatter at each other and help each other out of misunderstandings and scrapes.
If possible, the fic I would like best would focus on the Gil/Ferdy relationship, preferably slashy since I think they're about as in-love as you can get, maybe with Hero, Sherry, and George as adjuncts or matchmakers. Part of the joy of Friday's Child, for me, is how Hero absorbs more than she strictly ought to about Things and is singularly unfazed by them, so why shouldn't she make up her mind that Gil and Ferdy need to stop beating about the bush? But if you don't want to do slash, I'm happy with something about their friendship, or something about how the non-Sherry guys function within Hero’s marriage after the end of the book - I love how she inspires such genuine friendship and care from these men-about-town. As I said, I can only imagine how they’re all going to react when Sherry sets up his nursery. What sort of things would Ferdy buy a baby? I bet they would not be sensible. Like all Georgette fans, I am addicted to the language, the slang, the silliness! I love Gil's laconic speech and Ferdy's dim bafflement. God, this entire novel is just a heap of joy, and anything will delight me.
SORRY THIS POST IS SO LONG. But listen: I love you. Thank you for taking this on. I am going to be so excited on Christmas morning whatever you come up with. I hope you have fun with this, and that you get a wonderful story yourself, and that your holiday season is absolutely lovely. Until I know who you are, I will be thinking of you.
Love,
zlot