Yuletide Letter 2015

[rosedamask]

Dear Yuletide Writer,

First of all, you are a glorious person for offering these fandoms, and I'll be SO HAPPY to see more fic for any of these requested characters this Yuletide. I'm
rosedamask on DW and LJ/
damask_and_dark on AO3, if you'd like to do some reading around, but this letter is going to get absurdly long (oh god it's nearly 6k), so if you want to just run off and start writing now, go for it - I'll love whatever you had in mind when you offered these fandoms. I'm really omnivorous as a reader, and I'm really easy for these characters, so if you’d like to stay for the Director’s Cut on why I requested them, that’s fabulous, but if you already have something in mind, that’s equally fabulous. So, without further ado, here is my (ridiculously long) letter - written with the best efforts to keep things from getting too Wall of Text.

General | Crimson Peak | Fallen London | From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series | Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke

General


Very broadly, I definitely like:
- Fic of all ratings and genres, and characters from everywhere on the moral spectrum.
- Gen, het, slash and femslash.
- Fic written in all tenses and from all POVs.
- Fics written in almost all formats - I'd rather not see any scriptfic for any of the fandoms I'm requesting this year, but beyond that, I'm open to all kinds of unusual formats and framing devices. Five times/5+1s, epistolary fic, documentation-style fics that pastiche things like history books, excerpts from in-universe texts - it's all totally welcome.

So, this is essentially my blanket permission for you to write in any kind of style/tone you like! Getting more specific, here is a (non-exhaustive!) list of things that I love to see in fics, should you wish to include any of them:

General: character introspection, distinctive/atmospheric settings, heightened realities, supernatural elements and magical realism, period detail, fairytales and mythology, falling from grace, characters defying conventions or having complex feelings about what their societies expect from them, schemes and intrigues, women in power, clothes porn and scenery porn, allusions and homages to literature, domesticity (whether it’s a mundane home or something more bizarre).

Shipping/character interaction: falling in love, slow burns/longing, seduction, sex with a focus on characterisation, D/s, clothes porn and scenery porn intersecting with actual porn (so clothed/unclothed kink and sex in unusual settings will absolutely get thumbs up all the way), surprising attractions and Not So Different bonding, affection, banter, characters knowing each other well (in either a well-worn friendship way or a more devious and Machiavellian way), master/apprentice relationships, unusual demonstrations of affection from stoic/not-conventionally-romantic characters, secret affairs/alliances, found families, loyalty and devotion.

As to dislikes, here are the things I'd rather not see: A/B/O, relationships where one character thinks of the other as being wholly their inferior, graphic torture/scenes of prolonged violence, explicit rape/noncon, mundane AUs for weird canons, extreme humiliation/degradation in kink.

Crimson Peak

(Edith Cushing, Lucille Sharpe, Thomas Sharpe)
From the candlelit waltz (with Lucille at the piano!) to Thomas’ last, desperate “we could have a new life, all of us,” I was totally bewitched by how all the gothic fairytale takes on horror and love played out between Edith and the Sharpes. Anything that gives me more of these three would be utterly loved, whether it’s an Edith/Lucille/Thomas OT3 AU, or something focused on a particular ship variation (be it Edith/Lucille or Lucille/Thomas or Thomas/Edith), or something that looks at any one of the characters individually.

THIS FILM THOUGH. I just saw it last weekend, and my inner Anne Shirley was pretty much in raptures all the way through, between the lashings of Victorian fairytale psychodrama, and all the darkly gorgeous fin-de-siecle aesthetics, and the most beautiful puffed sleeve gowns I’ve ever seen in my life - and with the Edith/Lucille/Thomas triangle at the centre of it all, I couldn’t resist asking for fic here. As I hinted in the sign-up blurb, an avalanche of “all of us” feelings were what sparked the request, but I really loved all these characters, and would be completely thrilled with anything that gave me more of them - either individually, or in relation to their terrifying romances with each other. So, definitely feel free to interpret this an “or” request and focus on whatever takes your fancy! There’s absolutely no way to go wrong with these three. <333

Looking at the characters individually, I loved all Edith’s wide-eyed bravery, and how she held her hand out to the darkness and asked it to show her what it wanted from her. That was the most haunting scene in the whole film, for me, and I think it could work really beautifully as an emblem of her relationship with the Sharpes and her approach to the world in general - so, anything that features more of Edith gamely navigating the gothic underworld would be absolutely fantastic. To quote one excellent FFA comment, between this and Stoker, I'm pretty sure my type is “Mia Wasikowska is thrust into some weird gothic murdery incestuous situation, and she comes out of it powerful and covered in blood,” and I’d be especially into anything that looked at her life post-Crimson Peak. As the de facto mistress of Allerdale Hall, does she ever have to go back there? Is she still haunted by the Sharpes, literally or figuratively? Is she still writing ghost stories? If so, do Lucille and Thomas now figure in them, and does she ever try to give them some kind of fictional absolution? (As a sidebar: I really enjoyed Edith’s authorliness, so if you’d like to do an excerpt from one of her stories, that would also be awesome.)

As for the Sharpes, I loved how Lucille and Thomas were framed as these bitter black weeds trying to thrive in their decaying family mansion, how they were both tethered to Crimson Peak but still had moments of wistful yearning for the light, and how they were both totally stepp’d in blood and trauma but dealt with that in very different ways. I loved Lucille’s blend of indomitability and vulnerability, how she could be brutal and tender and chilling and melancholy all in the measure of a scene, and the contrast between how proudly she gave herself over to the horrors of love and how desperately she hated the thought of being left alone in the shadows. And with Thomas, I loved how he was both the archetypical Bluebeard husband and a genderswapped take on the archetypical gothic heroine who’s torn between two polarised lovers, and all the strange sad he showed in his close-eyed acceptance of the things that scared him, and how he knew that he must have something bitter/terrible in him to have grown up on Crimson Peak but still had some tentative flickering hope in Edith and in the possibilities of a life beyond Allerdale Hall. So, I’d be totally here for any kind of character study featuring either of them, whether it’s pre-movie Lucille in the attic through the years or a little snippet of Thomas in his workshop - and I’d definitely be up for anything that tells us more about their relationship with each other.

For Lucille/Thomas, there’s just so much there that would make for a gorgeous story: backstory fic that looks at their post-asylum reunion, or the moment when Lucille first wore the ring? An epistolary fic from when they were separated after their first murder, or when Thomas is out wooing one of the pre-movie wives? Five times Thomas made Lucille a particularly special love token in the workshop? Something that looks at their ghostly post-film existence together (and whether this kind of eternal re-enactment of their past trauma is any different to what they had in life)? It would all be entirely awesome, and I’d love to see anything you want to do with them.

And then there’s their relationships with Edith! From an Edith/Lucille perspective, I loved all the imagery of Edith as the gauzy-winged butterfly to Lucille’s formidable black moth - their exchange in the park and the scene where Edith is lured down by Lucille’s lullaby were two of my absolute favourite moments in the movie. I shipped them like burning all through the first half of the story, and was more than a little disappointed when the nuances of their earlier dynamic were eventually cast aside as it moved towards the climax, so anything that focuses on the weird kind of ambiguous magnetism between them would be entirely wonderful. I loved that Edith was specifically cautioned against nurturing her “fascination with the Sharpes,” plural, and would be really intrigued by any missing scene fics that looked at the New York courtship from that angle - what other interactions did Edith have with Lucille, and what could have necessitated that warning from her father? Why was Lucille initially the sibling with the greater empathy towards Edith, and could there ever have been a universe where she held onto the belief that Edith shouldn’t be sacrificed? I’d also love anything that looks at their relationship after Edith is brought back as the (temporary) mistress of Allerdale Hall - are there any more instances of Lucille drawing Edith to her with her melancholy song, or where Lucille talks about her past with Edith? Does Lucille ever pay any Bertha Mason-style observatory visits to a dreaming Edith, when she’s alone in her gloomy marriage bed, or otherwise do anything else to feed her own obsession with Thomas’ new wife? Just give me all darkly lovely fairytale-inflected femslash, and I will be ridiculously happy.

As regards Edith/Thomas, I totally enjoyed all the sweeping agonies and ecstasies of their New York courtship, and then I was even more sold on them as a couple after the whole spectacular tragi-romantic “I did! I did! I do!” exchange in the lift. So, I would love to see anything that picked up where the movie left off in playing with all the light-and-dark contradictions of their marriage. Was Thomas always a little drawn to Edith, and if not, at what point did this marriage become real to him? Did his urge to keep Edith alive hit him all at once in the sanctuary of the post office, or did it happen gradually? What were his thoughts, when he was letting himself play at being a doting husband with Edith and then going down to help Lucille with the tea? And what are Edith’s retrospective thoughts on her marriage? Is she ever tempted to try and call up Thomas’ ghost, or was that last look at him in the snow enough for her? Also, as mentioned above, I love that Edith was the brave one who kept her eyes open all the while, and how these were virtues that Thomas was always in very pointedly lacking in himself. So, if you’d like to do any kind of AU ending where he survives his Fatal Cheekbone Stabbing and she succeeds in heroically rescuing him from the ruin of Allerdale Hall and drags him out into the snowstorm (and into a very Jane Eyre re-negotiation of the power dynamics in their marriage?), that would be completely awesome.

And speaking of AU endings, I would be extremely delighted by anything where all the hints of Edith/Lucille/Thomas OT3 really did come to fruition. (Because damn, Guillermo del Toro giveth and Guillermo del Toro taketh away.) For an OT3 scenario where they all stayed within the gloriously creepy domesticity of Allerdale Hall, I’d love an AU where Lucille and Thomas maybe a little slower off the mark with the poison, or decided that Edith could perhaps be re-seduced instead of murdered - and where Edith held her hand out to the darkness and let it lead her straight into their bed. Or, for an AU take on the ending where the “all of us” gambit resulted in fewer people lying dead in the snow, I would absolutely love anything that explored what might have happened, had they all left Allerdale Hall together like Thomas suggested. Could Lucille and Thomas ever truly learn to live outside the bloody hothouse of Crimson Peak? Would Edith ever come to share their understanding of horror and love? Although I’d really like to see some kind of OT3 fic where Edith, Lucille and Thomas all perversely thrive together, it definitely doesn’t have to have any kind of redemption arc overtones - the gothic and the ghostly and the creepy are all absolutely welcome here. Just give me more lashings of Victorian fairytale psychodrama between Edith, Lucille and Thomas, and I’ll be completely thrilled with anything you come up with.

(Also, this is a bit more abstract as a prompt scenario, but: something where the waltz-and-candle routine from New York becomes a kind of OT3 ritual for the Sharpes and Edith, over the years. You know it would be glorious.)

Fallen London

(The Captivating Princess, The Quiet Deviless, The Sardonic Music-Hall Singer, Virginia)
Four ladies of the Neath - who are they, really, and who might they be to each other? Seasons in Hell, intrigue at the court of the Traitor Empress, antics backstage at the music halls of London - I’d really love to see anything featuring any of these women, whether they’re explored in solo character studies or brought together in any combination, and would be thrilled by anything you come up with for them, be it femslash or gen.

Fallen London is one of my long-time favourite fandoms - it’s just so lush and labyrinthine and elegantly disquieting, and I love almost all the NPCs we meet in the game. So, what I’d really love to see for this request is anything exploring any of these characters and what they do with themselves in the Neath, whether it’s an introspective piece centred on one of these ladies or something which sends any number of them on an adventure together. Basically, I’d love to see some perspectives on the Fallen London universe beyond the one we experience as the Player, and I’d be extremely happy with anything that focuses on as many (or as few) of my nominated/letter-mentioned characters as you’d like - so, as with the Crimson Peak request, definitely feel free to treat this as an “or” request, and go whichever way you please. <33

The worldbuilding and characters that we get for Hell and the Brass Embassy are some of my absolute favourite parts of the game, so I’ve put the Quiet Deviless and Virginia down as two of my character choices - and I love them dearly as two very different devilesses. With the Quiet Deviless, I love how she’s both searingly lovely and achingly vulnerable, and how there’s always something so gentle and melancholy about her even when she’s trying to steal your soul. I love the little glimpses we get into her strange domestic situation with her maid, and her bat, and the mercury-and-belladonna cosmetics that are still nearly as shocking to post-Fall sensibilities as a portfolio of souls, and I’d be epically delighted by anything that looked at her life outside of Player seductions. Who is the Quiet Deviless within her own circle of devils, and what kind of position does she hold in the Brass Embassy? Is she as retiring and reclusive as she seems, or is she known as a silent but formidable force among her fellow devils? Is she wholly at ease with the cruelty of the Brass Embassy and her life as a soul-stealer, or does she ever have any regrets as to her nature as a deviless? Has she ever seduced/craved companionship from any of the non-devil figures in the game? And what does she do with herself, when the souls are reaped and her work is done - does she go out to silently observe the Brass Embassy balls, or go to the theatre, or stay home with her books and her bats and her dubious poetry, or do something else entirely? And how does her broody intensity play off the jovial flamboyance of the Affectionate Devil, when they're out together?

Although Virginia’s much closer to the keen, hungry devils who we see more often in the game, I love that she’s also a bit of a curiosity in the same vein as the Quiet Deviless, as regards her preference for arcane knowledge over bottled souls. So, what’s life like for Virginia, as an acadevil? Does she have more allies at Bethnic College than the Brass Embassy, or is she one of the Embassy’s brightest lights, despite spending so much of her time in the Forgotten Quarter on archaeological digs rather than joining in with the sadistic people-hunts? What kind of knowledge is she seeking (Correspondence-related or otherwise), and what does she plan to do with it? Does she ever combine her love for history and her appetite for souls by seeking out exceptional souls from antiquity, like we see in the House of Chimes’ October storylet with Discerning Deviless and the alleged soul of Salome? If so, has she ever crossed paths with the Discerning Deviless, or attended any of her salons? Also, I love that she’s purposefully anachronistic in her very 1930s chic character design, and would be very delighted by anything that looked at the significance of that - are her pillbox hats and slip dresses meant to be indicative of her being a thoroughly modern and independent deviless, or does she have any forbidden knowledge regarding the Neath’s future as well as its past?

Moving to the Shuttered Palace, I’m also really fascinated by the enigmatic double life of the Captivating Princess. She’s just so perfectly starry and elegant at the Feast of the Exceptional Rose, “[wearing] scandal like a Parisian gown,” and I love all the little hints we get as how her loyalty to her family is strained by her obvious differences to them, and of the way she moves between the silence and austerity of her mother’s court and the decadent underworlds of the Neath. So, what does it mean to the Captivating Princess, to be a true daughter of the Neath? Is she just stunningly emblematic of all that’s bizarre and beautiful in the fallen world, or has her fate been shaped by the Masters in some more intimate way? What are some of her most memorable honey dreams? And what does she do with herself when the dreams have faded? (Also, The Gift is one of my all-time favourite storylets, and I would absolutely love to see anything that featured more weird uncanny domestic shenanigans at the court. So, with a warning for LOTS of spoilers ahead - what happened to the Captivating Princess after the red honey catastrophe, and how did she restore herself to her old unholy beauty? I especially loved the little glimpses we got of her being fond and tender with Beatrice/the Playful Prodigy, and lonely and regretful over the rifts between her and the rest of the palace, so anything that expanded on those family dynamics would also be amazing. What was it like before, with the honey and the laughter and the music? Will she always be at odds with the Heartbroken Bibliophile and the Brooding Captain, and is her bond with Beatrice the most she has by way of real human connection?)

And the Sardonic Music-Hall Singer is always an utter delight, whether she’s at home in Spite or whether she’s conquering high society in her salon appearances. I love that she’s so acerbic and hard-bitten and cynical, yet also so lively and kind and irrepressibly fun wherever she happens to be - so, anything that takes a closer look at her life in the Neath would be entirely wonderful. When we first meet her, she’s set on eloping to Hell with the Absconding Devil, even though their affections for each other are a little dubious - what led her to that point? How did she meet the Absconding Devil in the first place, and what might have happened to her if she’d left with him on that train? Where did she learn her favoured songs of “roses and forests and a wand'ring princeling who is eaten by hatchling ghosts, one finger at a time” - from her mother, or from a drownie sweetheart, or in a dream, or some other (even stranger?) way? How have her experiences as a woman of great ambition and independence informed her incendiary views on Neathly politics? What’s her career trajectory been like - has she had to fight tooth-and-nail to get where she is now? Is she close with any of her fellow bohemians/artists - and if so, who is she particularly fond of (perhaps the Struggling Artist’s Model, actual talented poet and fellow rising star)?

If you’d like to write something shippy or throw some of these characters together, I’m COMPLETELY here for that too, because strange and beautiful Victorian femslash is essentially my kryptonite. We know that the Sardonic Music-Hall Singer has previously had the inclination (or at least the pragmatic readiness) to be an intimate of devils, so what would she make of the Quiet Deviless and her subtle, smouldering seduction? How would it compare to the mutually conniving affair she had with her Absconding Devil? Is Virginia’s predatory languor something altogether more familiar/appealing to her? Alternatively, do Virginia and the Quiet Deviless have an understanding of their own, as two outsiders/outliers from Hell? If so, how did they meet - at a lecture, or a ball, or a dig in the Forgotten Quarter, or some kind of shadowy Brass Embassy meeting? What might a courtship/marriage between devilesses look like? And of course, the Captivating Princess goes gorgeously with so many characters - does she have a secret soft spot for the Sardonic Music-Hall Singer as one of the dry voices of reason in the Neath? As a connoisseur of Neathly perversions, has she ever entertained any especially charming and discreet ambassadors from the Brass Embassy - and if so, do they recognise her as being spiritually One of Them, or is she something exquisitely alien to her devil companions? I’d honestly love to see anything which shows us what non-Player relationships might be found in Fallen London, and it’s the perfect fandom for orgastic multi-shipping (or indeed for writing about terrifying rivalries and bizarre friendships), so you should definitely go wherever any of these character combinations lead you, if you’re that way inclined!

From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series

(Kate Fuller, Santanico Pandemonium)
One of the things I love most about FDTD is how beautifully Kate and Santanico parallel each other - as a preacher’s daughter and a high priestess, they both started off life as the sun-kissed beloveds of their respective gods, and now, as of s2, they’ve both been turned into symbolic bringers of night and the innocent blood that sheds innocent blood. I’d really love to see what kind of dynamic they might have if they ever met, and would be epically delighted by anything that got them together and explored how they might come to feel about each other, whether you’d like to write some femslash for them or look at a more gen/pre-femslash kind of alliance.

Oh my gosh, FDTD - I binge-watched this over the summer, and I’m SO glad I did. I really love that this series is a thumpingly pulpy love letter to all kinds of tropey fiction genres with women get to be nuanced and layered as well as bold and outsized as characters, and one of my most wished-for things from FDTD s1 was more f/f interaction. And though I definitely enjoyed seeing all Santanico’s Adventures in Outstanding UST with Paloma and Sonja earlier in s2, I’m still massively craving an actual meeting between Kate and Santanico, and would love anything that features them together. (I mean, how many times can this show put them in the same building and then have them keep missing each other, jfc.) I’m really fascinated by how Kate and Santanico’s thematic arcs blend together - innocence and experience, love versus worship, light and dark, taking control of your destiny and moving beyond the boundaries of your old life, whether that was a once-idyllic Southern girlhood or centuries of nightmarish enslavement - and I’d be thrilled by anything exploring what they make of each other, whether you’d like to write them from a femslash or gen perspective.

I love how Santanico gets to be glorious and tragic and terrifying, and how the show lets her live up to her legacy as a sin-eating serpent queen but also lets her be a desperate, lonely survivalist who just wants to be her own person again. I love how she can be so ruthless and unmerciful as the jailor of her vengeance prison/the vampire of her own heart, and yet also so very human and sympathetic in her yearning for liberty and her mourning of her lost innocence. As for Kate, I love how she’s both a pragmatist and an idealist, how she’s learning hold her own in a very bloody, unstable world but still clings onto her convictions as much as possible and still has “that light” inside her. I love that she’s no one’s sacrifice and has never been a pushover, but still draws strength from her readiness to love the unlovable, and I love how she’s so determined to keep burning on no matter what the universe throws at her. As I said in the sign-up, I love how they well they’ve always worked as reflections of each other, even at the beginning when they were framed as showgirl and ingénue, and I’d be fascinated to see anything where that gets explored more - especially anything where they get the chance to really see and understand each other, and even support each other in their missions if they can. (They definitely don’t have to have an uncomplicatedly wholesome relationship, obviously! But it’s that kind of unlikely kindred spirits vibe that I’d really like to see focused on, rather than straight-up antagonism/catfighting.)

Taking the “each other through a glass darkly” vibe one step further, I’d be extremely happy with any kind of capery fics that teamed up them together. For a pre-“There Will Be Blood” AU, would Kate have understood Santanico’s purity of purpose when it comes to blasting Malvado from the face of the earth, and could she ever have been persuaded to join in Santanico’s revenge quest? If Santanico comes to realise that her work here is not yet done, and she still needs to fight against the Nine Lords’ empire, could Kate still help her on this quest? Or, for a post-“TWBB” alliance, I’d be ridiculously excited to see anything where Kate survives the shooting through supernatural intervention (whether that’s being turned culebra or something entirely different), and where Santanico is there to take her under her wing. I’d love to see what it would be like for Kate to learn more about the culebra mythology from Santanico, and have Santanico as guide to lead her through the underworld that she and her family have been dragged into, so if you’d like to do anything that has Kate coming into her own with Santanico as a perverse mentor figure, that would be excellent in every way.

I’m also totally here for this alliance playing out in a more emotional “love/understanding heals some wounds” kind of way, because I really do want them both to find happiness somehow. Kate’s non-worship inflected love bringing Santanico a modicum of peace (and maybe Santanico being specifically drawn to Kate in part because she’ll always see La Diosa as a graven idol?), or Santanico teaching Kate that she can still value her innocence above all no matter how deeply she’s enmeshed in the culebra world, or Kate showing Santanico that she can still have purpose in life after her vengeance is wrought - anything along those lines would be completely glorious to my id.

From a specifically femslashy perspective, I absolutely ship them with the fire of a thousand suns, and would be totally thrilled by anything you’d like to do with them in that regard. A slow burn romance over a growing pile of the Nine Lords’ ashes? Something with lots of wary-yet-undeniable UST, and Kate and Santanico overcoming any initial aversion/hesitation as regards acting on anything with each other? A snippet of smut (whether it’s tender and bittersweet, or mystical and ritualistic, or pulpy in a canon-typical “venom and tequila bodyshots and bloodplay and Santanico kissing Kate godless” kind of way)? A quiet, intimate little scene where Santanico opens up and tells Kate about her life as Kisa? Something with culebra!Kate and how their relationship changes over the centuries, or a little snippet of a very FDTD take on the classic vampire-and-maiden seduction tropes? It would all be ENTIRELY LOVED by me.

Also, throwing out some options for more canon divergent AUs, because there are so many ways fabulous ways they could have fit together: I’d be all over any post-“Last Temptation” fic where it was Kate who Santanico swooped in to free from the JKJ, and where they got to ride off into the sunset together after Malvado got his face ripped off. Going further back, I’d also love a s1 AU where it was Kate who got visions from Santanico/beat the labyrinth to free her, or any kind of mid-s1 canon divergent fic where Kate got to the Titty Twister and somehow found out that this was indeed “where [she] was meant to be,” because she has some kind of destined connection to Santanico. (Also, if you want to take up any kind of fate-got-them-together angle for Kate and Santanico, I’d love anything that explores just what was going on with Jenny Fuller, and what kind of maternal heritage Kate might have through her. Is she both the preacher’s daughter and the child of something weirder and more esoteric?) Or maybe an AU for “The Take” where Kate left with Santanico and Richie, instead of Seth? I would be beyond ecstatic to see Kate and Santanico striking out on their own, but if you’d like to keep the Geckos around for OT3/4 hijinks, that’s also totally good with me - I’d be particularly into anything that exploits all the potential for weird soulful bonding in a Kate/Santanico/Richie equation. But seriously, as long as Kate and Santanico get to share the stage together, I’ll love whatever you come up with, so definitely feel free to take this request anywhere you like. <333

(Just as an admin note: I’ll be watching the last episode of s2 as soon as it comes up on Netflix, and will try to come back and update this if there’s any especially prompt-inspiring twists for Kate and Santanico - but if I don’t, please don’t worry about spoilers or ignoring any significant canon developments that happen there! I’ll definitely be up-to-date in time for fic reveals.)

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke

(Emma Pole, John Childermass)
Emma Pole and Childermass are two of my very favourite characters in JSAMN, and I’m definitely intrigued by all the outward contrasts and subtle little similarities they seem to have between them. She’s a high-born lady of letters who’s lived too much of her life in dreary captivity on the other side of the rain, and he’s a former enforcer/pickpocket/all-round man-of-understated-action who knows every half-eggcupful of glory and barrelful of misery in the world, but they’re both proud as the devil and fiercely competent and clever, and I’d be really fascinated by anything where they got to interact more. Shipping or gen would be equally loved.

Okay, this is perhaps a slightly strange combination of characters, but - as I hinted in my sign-up details, I think Emma and Childermass could have a really interesting dynamic together, as a study in complementary opposites. So, I’d really love to see anything where they get to interact with each other beyond unintentional shootings and eleventh hour finger-bindings, and am totally open for anything you’d like to do with them, whether it’s 1000 words of them snarking on society figures and less-than-worthy magicians or something that sends them off for some kind of adventure in England or on the King’s Roads.

JSAMN is one of my favourite books, and I especially love all its gorgeous intricacy, and its moments of eerie beauty (little boxes the colour of heartache, and fans made from “frost upon leaves and the fragile pendants of ice that hang from twigs”!), and its cast of epically delightful characters - and as I said above, these two are both right up there. On the one hand, there’s Childermass, who lives very much in the shadows as a magician and as a man, who’s been made fabulously wry and cynical and also eminently capable by all his dubious careers, and who has the kind of quiet steely stoicism that lets him gallop off into the night and say someone mistook his face for an orange after he gets into scuffles with knife-wielding dandies. Then by way of contrast, there’s Lady Pole, once-doomed heiress and society bride, whose connection to magic comes from her highly-celebrated resurrection, and who’s glitteringly elegant and regal and tragic as a captive guest in Lost-hope and then gloriously scornful and passionate and “determined upon public exposure” in her post-enchantment exultation. They’re both really fantastic and magnetic in very different ways, but then there are some lovely moments of similarity between them at other points in the novel, and that’s something I’d love to see explored more.

Emma’s got “all the calm in the world” at her disposal when she’s shooting at hearts and correcting her mother on the value of magical history and telling Sir Walter & Co how they should actually be running parliament, and Childermass is there with some equally cutting farewells when Norrell makes categorically awful life choices in the end. And while Childermass gets to be delightfully sneaky and subversively independent for much of the novel, Emma’s also given the chance to fabulously (and righteously!) belie her reputation for madness with her resourcefulness and determination whenever she has a plan. (Lady Pole has literally pistol-whipped a man, and that is AWESOME.) I feel like they’ve definitely got the same kind of coolness and cleverness running through them, plus the same readiness to eventually start raising hell when their ostensible elders and betters start screwing up, so I’d love to see what kind of awesome formidable power duo they could make if they were ever brought together.

If you’d like to look at them in relation to the great sweeping changes to the magical world that we see taking root at the end of the novel, that would be amazing. What are things like between them, post-book? Do they ever team up to fight magic crime, or to perhaps play some part in defeating the Darkness? Are they at cross-purposes when it comes to the future of magic, and having lots of edifying Beatrice-and-Benedick style arguments with each other, or do they come to understand each other surprisingly well, as two people whose lives have been very intimately shaped by Norrell’s magic, but who instinctively rebel against it? I’d love to catch up on how they’ve developed as magical figures, and how they’re doing now they’re free agents at last, so anything that looks at them in this respect would be fabulous.

Going back to the events of the novel itself for more prompty material, I also really love the eeriness of their first canon encounter, with them facing each other “upon the ancient road,” and with Childermass immediately recognising Emma’s steeliness. (“There was nothing in the world he could say to deter her. Nothing in this world nor any other.” I mean, daamn.) I’d be fascinated by anything that took another look at this moment, or followed up on it in some way - do they ever talk about what it was like being on the other side of the wind-shook rain, when they meet again? What might have happened if Childermass had ever had chance to spend more time in proximity of an enchanted Emma under other circumstances? If canon divergence is your thing, I’d be totally down with some kind of mid-book AU where Childermass is maybe sent to the Poles’ house on some kind of dubious errand from Norrell, like with the tapestry theft incident from the TV series, but then Emma happens upon him and suddenly they’re together in Faerie, or anything else you can come up with to exploit the weird magical sympathy between them. (Also, on a specifically shippy level, Childermass notes that Emma “would probably have been considered handsome by the people who cared about such things.” Does he, in fact, ever care about such things - and perhaps do an excellent job of stubbornly pretending to himself he doesn’t - or is he drawn to her over time for other reasons?)

And then there’s the finger-binding in “Two versions of Lady Pole,” with their totally excellent “I shall speak nothing but madness”/“I have passed twenty years in the society of magicians, I am accustomed to it” exchange, and the surprising d’aww factor of “she laid her white hand in Childermass's lined, brown one.” (Also, Lady Pole/Segundus/Childermass OT3? Just throwing that out there.) On the one hand, Emma’s totally understandable in her cynicism regarding “how these men protect each other” and her fear that Childermass is going to shield Strange and Norrell from her vengeance. But does his insistence on going to help free Stephen and Arabella do anything to redeem him in her eyes? Does Emma stay as his dramatic and terrifying arch-frenemy, as seen in their final encounter, or does she slowly mellow out towards Childermass after she grows more acquainted with his post-Norrell outlook and priorities? (And, as a sidebar - if you’d like to keep Emma’s affections directed towards “the best of women” and want some non-het options for Emma ships, I’m also super fond of both Emma/Arabella and Emma/Flora, and would be very happy with anything featuring either of those pairings!)

Also, because JSAMN lends itself so beautifully to little snippets of magical domesticity, I’m just going to leave a couple of prompts for that here, if that’s the kind of thing you’d like write. If Emma and Childermass both end up as practicing magicians, post-book, do they ever do spells together? Or does Emma ever end up learning how to read the cards of Marseilles, as part of a plan to be forewarned and forearmed about her destiny? Following up from pre-enchantment Emma telling us she’s “fond of history” as it pertains to black northern kings, and from Childermass’ dedication to John Uskglass, I’d also love to see anything where she and Childermass get to bond over this shared interest in England’s magical past - maybe they go exploring the north together, or get into some drawing-room debate over the history of the Raven King? As I said at the beginning, I’m really open for anything you’d like to do with these two, so you can absolutely take any of this in any direction you like, and I’ll be sure to love it. <33

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And that's (finally) it! Thank you very much for reading this letter, and for offering these fandoms - I really hope there's something in here that you'll enjoy writing, and that you have a wonderful Yuletide all-around. I'm really excited to see whatever you come up with, and you already have all my gratitude for making it through this letter. <333

- D.