DEAR YULETIDE WRITER
Dear Yuletide Writer,
Thanks for sharing a small fandom with me, I can't wait to see what you come up with!
My requests fall into two broad themes this year: fabulous female cooks, and a more traditional (though still rare on the fic front) movie and tv show. I've requested the latter before, so that section of this letter might read as more polished than the rest, but I would be absolutely delighted by fic in any of these very small or non-existent fandoms.
Most of my usual list of likes and dislikes feels less relevant this year, my requests are so different, so I guess I'll just say that you're very welcome to look back at past fic exchange letters if you want to, but otherwise anything in the general spirit of these vague prompts will please me very much. And sorry for the vague if you (like me!) enjoy specifics.
A general comment about my Fabulous Female Cooks requests: I love cooking, I love eating out, I love detailed books of esoteric culinary techniques, I love the history of food and hospitality and recipe writing, I love awful 1970s recipes and faded food photography, I love women who unashamedly love to eat and drink. If you love any of these things then please feel free to go hog wild with them. I'm normally not a fan at all of crossovers or AUs, but in this case I would be pleased to make several exceptions as explored below.
Cuisine Queens RPF
Any (Mary Berry, Valerie Bertinelli, Giada De Laurentiis, Ina Garten, Nigella Lawson)
First up, any combination of some or all of these “characters” would be welcome, and a crossover/fusion with Two Fat Ladies (TV) would also be a delight if the whim took you. I’m not remotely looking for strenuous research or any sense of “realism”, just a love of food and cooking and lusty ladies. My knowledge of these women’s lives is entirely limited to onscreen personas and a few well known facts/relationships, and a hearty appreciation of their gusto.
When I first started thinking about nominating this as a fandom, following too many exhausted nights slumped on the couch watching Food Network, for some reason there sprang to mind a vision of the ladies caught up in some sort of period murder mystery, think Gosford Park or Murder on the Orient Express or even Murder She Wrote if “she” were a travelling celebrity cook instead of a novelist. I’d really love to see (some or all of) them at a country house or on a train or stranded on an island or any of the other classic mystery settings, teaming up to solve a murder most foul. (I’m sure he deserved it.) Even better if the mystery somehow revolves around food or cooking, or the solution hinges on detailed knowledge of the culinary arts.
Obviously, if that doesn’t appeal then any other idea you have would be great as well. Some or all of the women are contestants on the current season of Masterchef (UK please, not US). Two or more of the women were naughty schoolgirls together having regular midnight feasts with lashings of ginger beer. One of our mild mannered chefs is secretly a superhero or a secret agent/spy and the fate of the world is in her hands. Mary Berry and the Queen had adventures together during WWII. Feel free to toss in as many digressions about food or the history of food or anecdotes stolen from the lives of famous chefs or restauranteurs or society madams as you like, and link or footnote any fantastic recipes that seem relevant.
Mary Berry: I love the fact she famously likes a drink. Never enough booze in the cakes during Bakeoff. I’ve been watching her recently touring the stately homes of Britain and cooking in the historical kitchens, and boy she looks good in an evening dress, or dancing a Highland reel at Scone. “That’s a bit of all right!” Could definitely see her Miss Marple-ing her way through a mystery all while turning out impeccable cream teas.
Valerie Bertinelli: Former child star. Famous rocker (or period appropriate musician) ex-husband. Visiting American getting away from it all?
Giada De Laurentiis: Glamourous blonde granddaughter of famous movie producer (theatre impresario?) brings an air of Italian mystery to an English country weekend.
Ina Garten: Shockingly made her fortune running a shop! Or is she actually, really, a runaway (barefoot even) Contessa?
Nigella Lawson: I’ve always appreciated her buxom figure and sheer exuberance bordering on gluttony. “To some people, using half a kilo of chocolate to make twelve biscuits may seem excessive, but I don’t put a price on alleviating human suffering.”
Two Fat Ladies (TV)
Clarissa Dickson Wright, Jennifer Paterson
As mentioned above, a crossover/fusion with my Cuisine Queens RPF request would be welcome, and, together or separately, any of the prompts from that section of my letter apply equally to this fandom and these characters. Feel absolutely free to mix and match as much as you’d like, or just to wholesale steal those prompts and apply them to this fandom and these characters instead.
I absolutely loved this show when I first saw it almost twenty-five years ago, and some of the recipes really haven’t aged well on rewatch, but the ladies are just as large and loud and full of unashamed lust for life as they ever were. If anything, I can imagine a scenario where the fact they’re actually pretty far from expert cooks is part of the grand reveal that they’re really a pair of travelling detectives who only pretend to be chefs as a way to infiltrate the houses of the rich and suspicious, and drive around the countryside in their bike and sidecar solving dastardly crimes.
Again, any other story you want to tell would please me, from the days of their misspent youths to their travels to exotic foreign ports to their storied careers as cooks, housekeepers, and hostesses. I’d prefer minimal focus on Clarissa’s alcoholism or any of the domestic abuse allegations from her childhood; please just concentrate on the adventures and the food and the singing Jerusalem while beating eggs and the references to “those poor unfortunate vegetarians”.
A few gems from a recent rewatch:
“None of this nonsense about yoghurt instead of cream, yoghurt is not instead of cream!”
“Add great dollops of butter, that’s always a good idea.”
“The young, they exhaust one so.”
“Larding needle: a wonderful weapon, stick it in a burglar.”
“No good ever came out of Brussels but the odd chocolate.”
The Duchess of Duke Street (TV)
Louisa Trotter/Charles Tyrrell|Lord Haslemere
I loved this show from the first episode I saw - in fact I can remember the very first scene, it was the one where Louisa has been working so hard to pay off her debts that she collapses in the street at dawn, only to be discovered by Charlie slinking home on a walk of shame. I was just a kid at my grandma’s for the holidays, but it was love at first sight. It’s one of the great BBC costume dramas, and everything about it is so good, from the actors to the costumes to the fact Louisa’s life and career spans three reigns but even as a very wealthy woman she never loses her working class accent or scorn for airs and graces.
I requested Louisa and Charlie, but I love the whole Bentinck family, and would love to see any of Mary, Starr, Merriman, and/or the Major appear as well if it suits the story. In terms of what that story should be, almost anything would be a delight. Obviously I’d love to see episodes from Louisa and Charlie’s relationship, whether from the early forbidden romance days, to an AU where they really did get married “when the guns stop”. What kinds of adventures would Louisa have got up to as Lady Haslemere? Or any episode typical capers, whether at the hotel, or on Louisa’s inevitable run-ins with society matrons, like the visit to Cowes. Cooking a magnificent banquet for royalty. Having to host a banquet, but stay out of the kitchen and leave the poor harried cooks at the Haslemere estate to run their own affairs below stairs.
Good Will Hunting (1997)
Will Hunting/Chuckie Sullivan
I've requested this fandom for Yuletide before, and received a couple of really great gifts, but with less than a dozen fics in existence I will always be greedy for more.
I really love this film, and my favourite part has always been Will and Chuckie's relationship. It hits on so many of my favourite tropes, from lifelong friendships to ride or die loyalty to emotionally stunted chuckleheads who communicate best by having each others' backs in a bare knuckle brawl. Sean summed it up well when Lambeau was complaining about Will's choice to hang out with a "retarded gorilla" and he responded, "That retarded gorilla would take a bat to your head if he asked him to." [We've come quite some way in understanding inappropriate slurs since 1997 but I think the sentiment is still clear.] Likewise when one of the other boys hesitates about getting into a fight to support Will, and Chuckie says something to the effect, "When I'm done with them I'm coming for you." It's like catnip to my love of found family, "you and me against the world" friendships, and undying loyalty in the face of all common sense.
Anyway, there is so little fic available featuring these two that pretty much anything you can come up with would be very welcome indeed. I would love fic where Will and Chuckie are together, whether they get together before, during, or after the film. I'd prefer for them not to split up permanently, though I'm more than happy for them to get back together after a separation. Actually, breakups followed by makeups are a favourite romantic trope of mine, so putting them through some sort of emotional wringer would be great as long as there's a happy ending. I'd prefer Skylar be dealt with as briefly and respectfully as possible, whether via off screen break up or simple, time honoured, assuming that's been dealt with and moving forward.
Most of the dozen fics in existence explore Will returning to Boston, so maybe Chuckie heading out to California instead would be a nice change? (I'd be just as happy with more of the same, to be honest. Whatever suits. That's the beauty of tiny fandoms, everything is new and delightful.) Chuckie is my favourite character in the film, cypher though he largely is, so I'd love to see him explored a bit more. What's his back story? What are his dreams and ambitions, apart from reclaiming his boy?
I like get together fic, first times, established relationships, rifts and reconciliations, the whole kit and kaboodle, so fic set at any time or at any point in Will and Chuckie's relationship would be great. I'd be really interested to check in several years down the track, actually, to see these two at thirty instead of twenty, and what they've made of their lives.
I do enjoy explicit fic, so if you're interested in writing smut then please feel free to check out my letter for Smut Swap for further details.
Whitechapel (TV)
Joseph Chandler, Ray Miles
DNW: Chandler/Kent, or pining Kent or asexual Chandler. Please just keep this one gen and plot/case focused.
I'm five years late to this fandom, with tiger balm, and frankly quite broken hearted that we'll never get to see just where it was all going. I marathoned the whole show recently, and loved just about everything about it. I've liked Rupert Penry-Jones since I first saw him in Cambridge Spies as a teenager, but I was particularly delighted to see Phil Davis again, who I remember loving to hate as Prince John in Robin of Sherwood even longer ago. Their relationship was everything I like in mismatched colleagues turned loyal friends, from the initial terrible start, to sharing confidences and trusting each other with weaknesses, to firmly having each other's backs by the end. Miles trying to reassure Chandler in the sewer that his coat was salvageable tugged on my heartstrings in the final episode. How far they've come! Tell me more about how these two very different people find common ground and fight the good fight together.
I love the sudden swerve the show took in the final season, and would enjoy seeing it more fully explored, but equally, I've always been a fan of historical crime, and would be happy with a continued focus on more earthly policing. I like the whole team, and would be happy to see more of any/all of them. I would also be interested, in either case, in the whereabouts of Commander Anderson, and the ongoing impact on Chandler's once promising career. Are the team ever going to bring their villain in alive?
Is the police station built on a Hellmouth? Did Original Flavour Jack the Ripper leave some kind of psychic taint on the vicinity, like calling to like? Is the mythology of the place just a self fulfilling prophecy that affects the easily suggestible? Or is it all the inevitable result of poverty and neglect? The final few episodes making explicit what had been creeping in round the edges opened up a whole new world to explore. Is it "real" though, in the sense of demonic activity on earth, or are we witnessing some sort of folie a deux/mass hysteria/psychic assault etc?
Lastly, I remain a sucker for faves in peril, so if something ghastly (but recoverable!) happens to Chandler and Miles has to rescue him that'd be grand. Otherwise, facing danger together or with the team, all great in my book.
*****
Thanks very much, dear writer, and I hope you have a great Yuletide.
Thanks for sharing a small fandom with me, I can't wait to see what you come up with!
My requests fall into two broad themes this year: fabulous female cooks, and a more traditional (though still rare on the fic front) movie and tv show. I've requested the latter before, so that section of this letter might read as more polished than the rest, but I would be absolutely delighted by fic in any of these very small or non-existent fandoms.
Most of my usual list of likes and dislikes feels less relevant this year, my requests are so different, so I guess I'll just say that you're very welcome to look back at past fic exchange letters if you want to, but otherwise anything in the general spirit of these vague prompts will please me very much. And sorry for the vague if you (like me!) enjoy specifics.
A general comment about my Fabulous Female Cooks requests: I love cooking, I love eating out, I love detailed books of esoteric culinary techniques, I love the history of food and hospitality and recipe writing, I love awful 1970s recipes and faded food photography, I love women who unashamedly love to eat and drink. If you love any of these things then please feel free to go hog wild with them. I'm normally not a fan at all of crossovers or AUs, but in this case I would be pleased to make several exceptions as explored below.
Cuisine Queens RPF
Any (Mary Berry, Valerie Bertinelli, Giada De Laurentiis, Ina Garten, Nigella Lawson)
First up, any combination of some or all of these “characters” would be welcome, and a crossover/fusion with Two Fat Ladies (TV) would also be a delight if the whim took you. I’m not remotely looking for strenuous research or any sense of “realism”, just a love of food and cooking and lusty ladies. My knowledge of these women’s lives is entirely limited to onscreen personas and a few well known facts/relationships, and a hearty appreciation of their gusto.
When I first started thinking about nominating this as a fandom, following too many exhausted nights slumped on the couch watching Food Network, for some reason there sprang to mind a vision of the ladies caught up in some sort of period murder mystery, think Gosford Park or Murder on the Orient Express or even Murder She Wrote if “she” were a travelling celebrity cook instead of a novelist. I’d really love to see (some or all of) them at a country house or on a train or stranded on an island or any of the other classic mystery settings, teaming up to solve a murder most foul. (I’m sure he deserved it.) Even better if the mystery somehow revolves around food or cooking, or the solution hinges on detailed knowledge of the culinary arts.
Obviously, if that doesn’t appeal then any other idea you have would be great as well. Some or all of the women are contestants on the current season of Masterchef (UK please, not US). Two or more of the women were naughty schoolgirls together having regular midnight feasts with lashings of ginger beer. One of our mild mannered chefs is secretly a superhero or a secret agent/spy and the fate of the world is in her hands. Mary Berry and the Queen had adventures together during WWII. Feel free to toss in as many digressions about food or the history of food or anecdotes stolen from the lives of famous chefs or restauranteurs or society madams as you like, and link or footnote any fantastic recipes that seem relevant.
Mary Berry: I love the fact she famously likes a drink. Never enough booze in the cakes during Bakeoff. I’ve been watching her recently touring the stately homes of Britain and cooking in the historical kitchens, and boy she looks good in an evening dress, or dancing a Highland reel at Scone. “That’s a bit of all right!” Could definitely see her Miss Marple-ing her way through a mystery all while turning out impeccable cream teas.
Valerie Bertinelli: Former child star. Famous rocker (or period appropriate musician) ex-husband. Visiting American getting away from it all?
Giada De Laurentiis: Glamourous blonde granddaughter of famous movie producer (theatre impresario?) brings an air of Italian mystery to an English country weekend.
Ina Garten: Shockingly made her fortune running a shop! Or is she actually, really, a runaway (barefoot even) Contessa?
Nigella Lawson: I’ve always appreciated her buxom figure and sheer exuberance bordering on gluttony. “To some people, using half a kilo of chocolate to make twelve biscuits may seem excessive, but I don’t put a price on alleviating human suffering.”
Two Fat Ladies (TV)
Clarissa Dickson Wright, Jennifer Paterson
As mentioned above, a crossover/fusion with my Cuisine Queens RPF request would be welcome, and, together or separately, any of the prompts from that section of my letter apply equally to this fandom and these characters. Feel absolutely free to mix and match as much as you’d like, or just to wholesale steal those prompts and apply them to this fandom and these characters instead.
I absolutely loved this show when I first saw it almost twenty-five years ago, and some of the recipes really haven’t aged well on rewatch, but the ladies are just as large and loud and full of unashamed lust for life as they ever were. If anything, I can imagine a scenario where the fact they’re actually pretty far from expert cooks is part of the grand reveal that they’re really a pair of travelling detectives who only pretend to be chefs as a way to infiltrate the houses of the rich and suspicious, and drive around the countryside in their bike and sidecar solving dastardly crimes.
Again, any other story you want to tell would please me, from the days of their misspent youths to their travels to exotic foreign ports to their storied careers as cooks, housekeepers, and hostesses. I’d prefer minimal focus on Clarissa’s alcoholism or any of the domestic abuse allegations from her childhood; please just concentrate on the adventures and the food and the singing Jerusalem while beating eggs and the references to “those poor unfortunate vegetarians”.
A few gems from a recent rewatch:
“None of this nonsense about yoghurt instead of cream, yoghurt is not instead of cream!”
“Add great dollops of butter, that’s always a good idea.”
“The young, they exhaust one so.”
“Larding needle: a wonderful weapon, stick it in a burglar.”
“No good ever came out of Brussels but the odd chocolate.”
The Duchess of Duke Street (TV)
Louisa Trotter/Charles Tyrrell|Lord Haslemere
I loved this show from the first episode I saw - in fact I can remember the very first scene, it was the one where Louisa has been working so hard to pay off her debts that she collapses in the street at dawn, only to be discovered by Charlie slinking home on a walk of shame. I was just a kid at my grandma’s for the holidays, but it was love at first sight. It’s one of the great BBC costume dramas, and everything about it is so good, from the actors to the costumes to the fact Louisa’s life and career spans three reigns but even as a very wealthy woman she never loses her working class accent or scorn for airs and graces.
I requested Louisa and Charlie, but I love the whole Bentinck family, and would love to see any of Mary, Starr, Merriman, and/or the Major appear as well if it suits the story. In terms of what that story should be, almost anything would be a delight. Obviously I’d love to see episodes from Louisa and Charlie’s relationship, whether from the early forbidden romance days, to an AU where they really did get married “when the guns stop”. What kinds of adventures would Louisa have got up to as Lady Haslemere? Or any episode typical capers, whether at the hotel, or on Louisa’s inevitable run-ins with society matrons, like the visit to Cowes. Cooking a magnificent banquet for royalty. Having to host a banquet, but stay out of the kitchen and leave the poor harried cooks at the Haslemere estate to run their own affairs below stairs.
Good Will Hunting (1997)
Will Hunting/Chuckie Sullivan
I've requested this fandom for Yuletide before, and received a couple of really great gifts, but with less than a dozen fics in existence I will always be greedy for more.
I really love this film, and my favourite part has always been Will and Chuckie's relationship. It hits on so many of my favourite tropes, from lifelong friendships to ride or die loyalty to emotionally stunted chuckleheads who communicate best by having each others' backs in a bare knuckle brawl. Sean summed it up well when Lambeau was complaining about Will's choice to hang out with a "retarded gorilla" and he responded, "That retarded gorilla would take a bat to your head if he asked him to." [We've come quite some way in understanding inappropriate slurs since 1997 but I think the sentiment is still clear.] Likewise when one of the other boys hesitates about getting into a fight to support Will, and Chuckie says something to the effect, "When I'm done with them I'm coming for you." It's like catnip to my love of found family, "you and me against the world" friendships, and undying loyalty in the face of all common sense.
Anyway, there is so little fic available featuring these two that pretty much anything you can come up with would be very welcome indeed. I would love fic where Will and Chuckie are together, whether they get together before, during, or after the film. I'd prefer for them not to split up permanently, though I'm more than happy for them to get back together after a separation. Actually, breakups followed by makeups are a favourite romantic trope of mine, so putting them through some sort of emotional wringer would be great as long as there's a happy ending. I'd prefer Skylar be dealt with as briefly and respectfully as possible, whether via off screen break up or simple, time honoured, assuming that's been dealt with and moving forward.
Most of the dozen fics in existence explore Will returning to Boston, so maybe Chuckie heading out to California instead would be a nice change? (I'd be just as happy with more of the same, to be honest. Whatever suits. That's the beauty of tiny fandoms, everything is new and delightful.) Chuckie is my favourite character in the film, cypher though he largely is, so I'd love to see him explored a bit more. What's his back story? What are his dreams and ambitions, apart from reclaiming his boy?
I like get together fic, first times, established relationships, rifts and reconciliations, the whole kit and kaboodle, so fic set at any time or at any point in Will and Chuckie's relationship would be great. I'd be really interested to check in several years down the track, actually, to see these two at thirty instead of twenty, and what they've made of their lives.
I do enjoy explicit fic, so if you're interested in writing smut then please feel free to check out my letter for Smut Swap for further details.
Whitechapel (TV)
Joseph Chandler, Ray Miles
DNW: Chandler/Kent, or pining Kent or asexual Chandler. Please just keep this one gen and plot/case focused.
I'm five years late to this fandom, with tiger balm, and frankly quite broken hearted that we'll never get to see just where it was all going. I marathoned the whole show recently, and loved just about everything about it. I've liked Rupert Penry-Jones since I first saw him in Cambridge Spies as a teenager, but I was particularly delighted to see Phil Davis again, who I remember loving to hate as Prince John in Robin of Sherwood even longer ago. Their relationship was everything I like in mismatched colleagues turned loyal friends, from the initial terrible start, to sharing confidences and trusting each other with weaknesses, to firmly having each other's backs by the end. Miles trying to reassure Chandler in the sewer that his coat was salvageable tugged on my heartstrings in the final episode. How far they've come! Tell me more about how these two very different people find common ground and fight the good fight together.
I love the sudden swerve the show took in the final season, and would enjoy seeing it more fully explored, but equally, I've always been a fan of historical crime, and would be happy with a continued focus on more earthly policing. I like the whole team, and would be happy to see more of any/all of them. I would also be interested, in either case, in the whereabouts of Commander Anderson, and the ongoing impact on Chandler's once promising career. Are the team ever going to bring their villain in alive?
Is the police station built on a Hellmouth? Did Original Flavour Jack the Ripper leave some kind of psychic taint on the vicinity, like calling to like? Is the mythology of the place just a self fulfilling prophecy that affects the easily suggestible? Or is it all the inevitable result of poverty and neglect? The final few episodes making explicit what had been creeping in round the edges opened up a whole new world to explore. Is it "real" though, in the sense of demonic activity on earth, or are we witnessing some sort of folie a deux/mass hysteria/psychic assault etc?
Lastly, I remain a sucker for faves in peril, so if something ghastly (but recoverable!) happens to Chandler and Miles has to rescue him that'd be grand. Otherwise, facing danger together or with the team, all great in my book.
*****
Thanks very much, dear writer, and I hope you have a great Yuletide.