Yuletide letter
Dear Yuletide Writer,
thank you so much for creating a story for me! I hope you'll enjoy the experience and appreciate the work you're doing - writing a story in a tiny fandom we share is absolutely lovely, and I'm guaranteed to be pleased by your gift, so don't fret. My prompts are just that, prompts, not absolutes; if you have an idea that doesn't fit with any of them, but features the characters I asked for, I'll love it with added joyful surprise.
Some general do's and don'ts:
Canon: generally I prefer stories to adher to it. Now some AUs are fascinating and great ways to examine a character further, and I love the "Five things" format both as a writer and reader, so if you're struck by an idea which necessitates a departure from canon, don't let that stop you. It's just that if the story needs a long note explaining all that is different in this AU as an introduction, it's probably too far from canon for me. After all, I feel in love with this particular fictional universe and the characters in it for a reason.
Sex: whatever works best for you when writing the story. None at all, i.e. gen, slash, het, poly, I'm good either way as a reader. If there are any pairings I absolutely don't want to read about, I'll mention them in the prompts. No A/B/O in any case, though.
Character bashing: is a strict do not want. Though let me clarify a bit, because some of the characters in the fandoms I've requested hate other characters' guts, and it would be downright ooc for them to suddenly feel fair-minded and friendly towards them. So: in such a case, if, say, the pov character is canonically full of ire towards X, I wouldn't call this character making negative statements about X either in dialogue or in thoughts bashing. Otoh, if all the characters in the story follow suit and declare how much X sucks, while X never gets a positive word out, I'd call that bashing. If you yourself loathe a character - and it happens, to me, too - who'd usually be present in the story and feel uncomfortable writing them in a non-negative manner, I'd rather you declare that character absent from canon for whatever reason works best.
Character death: if it serves the story, go for it. It wouldn't be a problem for me.
18th Century Frederician RPF:
Bless you for dabbling this fandom of 18th century politics and drama! Any of the following scenarios would make me a happy reader indeed:
- young Fredersdorf gets posted to Küstrin and meets a very traumatized-by-Katte's death crown prince Friedrich. A relationship that will last decades ensues, but how, given the state Fritz was in and the very justified paranoia he had in general, did Fredersdorf manage to win his trust, never mind affection? And Fredersdorf: the last man getting close to to the crown prince had just been executed by the King. Does it occur to him this might happen to him as well, especially since his rank is far lower than Katte's has been, so there wouldn't even be any family protests? It seems to me a promising set up for a suspenseful H/C fic indeed.
- Queen Sophia Dorothea certainly had the husband from hell, but especially if you read Wihelmine's memoirs: she could be emotionally abusive, too, especially towards her daughter. She also had had a traumatic childhood herself, with her mother, George I of England's wife, trying, and failing, to run away with her lover and getting locked up for life as a result, with the love mysteriously dissappearing while the rest of Europe is betting on George I having him killed. The obvious parallels to what happened to her son and Katte must have occured to Sophia Dorothea in 1730. How does she feel about that? Especially given that she avoided visiting her mother in the later's captivity when she could have done despite said mother waiting for her, in vain, when Sophia Dorothea visited Hannover? Does her bad relationship with her oldest daughter reflect the non-relationship she has with her mother? If you want to go slightly AU and have Sophia Dorothea visit her mother after all, in the wake of the Katte catastrophe, by all means. Or maybe she does decide to talk it out with Wilhelmine?
- Maria Karolina Orzelska: was August the Strong's illegitimate daughter, may or may not have been also his mistress, definitely flirted with young Friedrich during the legendary awkward state visit Friedrich Wilhelm and Fritz made in Dresden, and got on well enough with him to later secretly visit him in Berlin. The notoriously misogynistic and definitely homosocial Fritz is even complimentary about her in a letter to Voltaire years and years later and proclaims to have loved her. Now this could have been het-posing for Voltaire's benefit - or teenage Friedrich did indeed have that one fling. (His sister Wilhelmine definitely thought so.) In any event, you could see why the two of them might have hit it off: children of ego-tastic royal fathers on whom their life depended. If Orzelska as a bastard had more freedom, she also had less protection (no one would have protested on her behalf if her father would have drowned her in the Elbe). She'd grown up in Paris, the city Fritz dreamed about but would never see, and no matter whether or not incest was going on, she was sexually experienced and living at the most licenteous courts in Europe at a point when he'd managed some fumblings at best and had a father who regarded all non-marital sex as of the devil. She liked to dress as a man; he was constantly getting called effeminate by said father. So: Orzelska and Fritz. What did she think of him? Can be anything between genuine sympathy and affection to wondering whether he could be her meal ticket out of Dresden, your choice. Did she meet anyone else - Wilhelmine, Keith, Katte, even, though this would have been before Fritz knew him - during her secret visit to Berlin? She died in 1769; did she ever try to meet Friedrich again once he was King, or did she think better of it? How did she feel about him invading Saxony? Even a casual encounter by accident when they're both middle-aged and very, very different people from those two youngsters might be interesting. (Mind you, given she spent most of her later life in France and Italy, she could also run into Wilhelmine during the later's journey there during the 1750s.) Orzelska simply intrigues me, and I'd love to read more.
Benjamin January Mysteries - Barbara Hambly: Ben's mother Livia is both one of the most memorable and most chilling characters of the series, and yet you can see how she got there. Give me Livia's pov on her daughters, both the one she cut ties with and the one she trained to succeed in her footsteps. What does she make of her daughter-in-law? When she was still a slave, did she ever consider running away or was she always convinced her chances at freedom were better trying to use a white man?
It may or may not have happened yet in canon - I haven't been able to read the most recent novels, though I plan to - but if it hasn't: feel free to imagine how a Livia-Marie Laveau encounter would go.
Dominique and Chloe:their relationship after all that build-up angst was such a delightful surprise. More about it, please. Ideally in a case fic where the two have to solve a minor or major mystery together, but I'll also take the two on a shopping expedition, buying glasses for Henri and Chloe - anything, really.
I Medici /Medici: Masters of Florence: Both broadcast seasons fulfill my inner Renaissance Melodrama need beautifully. (By the time you're writing, the third and final season might have already started, but by necessity my requests can only be inspired by the first two.)
Some thoughts and possible prompts: the gap between s1 and s2 leaves room for post-show Contessina and Cosimo. How do they deal with their newly achieved balance, do they manage to maintain it? As we see in s2, Cosimo's illegitimate son Carlo did indeed grow up in the Medici household - how did they each relate to him, what became of Maddalena? Contessina's insistence to little Lorenzo in the s2 flashbacks that he needs to make peace with the Pazzi leaves me to conclude Cosimo must have eventually made a full confession re: the Albizzi murders to her. Maybe write that scene?
I loved the mentor/protegé relationship Contessina had with her daughter-in-law Lucrezia in s1. In s2, we see Lucrezia has grown into a formidable matriarch herself. So something that's centred on that relationship would be great - maybe older Lucrezia negotiating in Rome in the present and having flashbacks to what Contessina has taught her? How did Contessina's death impact Lucrezia, given how close they were?
Missing scene(s) for Lucrezia and Piero: her siding with Lorenzo in the s2 opener is a terrible blow for him. They reconcile off screen, with the transition to his realisation only indicated by his scene with Bianca, so I would like you to show me their talking it out and making up, ideallly using their s1 backstory.
Also a missing scene: Clarice and Novella Foscari, and/or Clarice and Francesco. Given Francesco/Novella was Clarice's idea originally, maybe Novella tries to enlist her help to convince Francesco in the fallout of 2.05? Or Clarice tries on her own? How does she see Francesco going from godfather to her son and her husband's bff to sworn enemy, especially since she wasn't in Florence to witness the original Medici/Pazzi hostlity earlier? Does she try to intervene? (Conversely: maybe the ruthlessness with which Francesco kicks Novella out convinces her he's not at all who she thought he was.) Also, s3 will cover this but if you're like me and won't be able to watch it for a while, so you might like to try your hand at this: how will Clarice, faithful daughter of the church, cope with being excommunicated along with her husband and children in the wake of the Pazzi conspiracy? Does she believe the Pope sanctioned the murder of her husband and brother-in-law, does she hope he didn't (though Lorenzo clearly thinks he did)?
These are just some ideas. As you can see, they're all female-centric. While I love the male characters, too, they get ample on screen exploration, and anything centred on Contessina, Lucrezia or Clarice will win my heart.
Lastly, this is one of the few fandoms I have a NOTP in. Whatever you do, whomever you write about: please no Giuliano/Francesco.
The Last Kingdom: I've gone from being mildly fond of to definitely loving this tv series based on Bernard Cornwell's books, and would be thrilled to receive a story set in it. The Uthred and Alfred relationship in its prickly complexity pushed all my buttons, so anything focusing on it would be most welcome. (Some of my thoughts when consumating the canon are under this tag.)
One of the many things which makes me prefer tv canon over book canon is the way the tv show adds dimension to them and lets them interact with each other. Aelswith, who from Uthred's pov in the books is described in purely negative terms but on the tv show comes across as far more interesting (though still with great hostility towards Uthred and vice versa). By the second season, her marriage to Alfred comes across as strong, with Aelswith acting as councillor as much as consort, so please, unless we’re in Uthred’s pov, no Aelswith bashing. (Either of her children thinking she's wrong in her opinion of Uthred is fine, but I can't see either her daughter or her son hating her for this or not acknowledging her strengths as well.) Any exploration of Aeslwith at any point of tv canon, whether as an overall character portrait or centred on her relationships with Alfred or her children would be great. Or with Hild; their shared scene in s1 was the first time the show humanized Aelswith, after all.
Aethelflaed : anything that doesn't focus on her s2 relationship with Erik. Not that I have something against it, but much of what already exists as fanfic for The Last Kingdom is Aetheflaed/Erik, and I want something different in focus. Given Aethelflaed will end up as a ruler herself, and already has made great strides in that direction in s3; what lessons does she learn while growing up through her parents and others? How does she interact with them both as individuals and as a couple? Does she feel responsible for both Wessex and Mercia? If Erik and Uthred hadn't provided an alternative to the terrible "get ransomed and ruin Wessex, or get gangraped in public forever" choice, what would have been her plan? Did she consider suicide a la Odda?
In s3, we see her character winning over her husband's key advisor, while her husband gets ever worse. She's a realist: assassination must have occured to her, especially since she now knows her husband has tried more than once to get rid of her. What's keeping her - morals or the belief she couldn't hold Mercia yet at this point without the pretense of marriage? How does she relate to her brother? Does she think she could do as well/a better job, or does that never occur to her?
I don't think Hild and Brida ever meet, at least not in tv canon. Here, too, is a missing scene (or several) I'd love to read, as Hild's time as a warrior would make it impossible for Brida to dismiss her due to her Christianity; I could even see Brida wondering whether Hild might be who she'd have been had she been raised as a Saxon instead of with the Danes. (Not that I see them as identical, mind; I don't think Brida would have chosen becoming a nun even then, while I doubt Hild, had she been the one raised by the Danes, would have picked Ragnar the Younger - or any man.) This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1369305.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
thank you so much for creating a story for me! I hope you'll enjoy the experience and appreciate the work you're doing - writing a story in a tiny fandom we share is absolutely lovely, and I'm guaranteed to be pleased by your gift, so don't fret. My prompts are just that, prompts, not absolutes; if you have an idea that doesn't fit with any of them, but features the characters I asked for, I'll love it with added joyful surprise.
Some general do's and don'ts:
Canon: generally I prefer stories to adher to it. Now some AUs are fascinating and great ways to examine a character further, and I love the "Five things" format both as a writer and reader, so if you're struck by an idea which necessitates a departure from canon, don't let that stop you. It's just that if the story needs a long note explaining all that is different in this AU as an introduction, it's probably too far from canon for me. After all, I feel in love with this particular fictional universe and the characters in it for a reason.
Sex: whatever works best for you when writing the story. None at all, i.e. gen, slash, het, poly, I'm good either way as a reader. If there are any pairings I absolutely don't want to read about, I'll mention them in the prompts. No A/B/O in any case, though.
Character bashing: is a strict do not want. Though let me clarify a bit, because some of the characters in the fandoms I've requested hate other characters' guts, and it would be downright ooc for them to suddenly feel fair-minded and friendly towards them. So: in such a case, if, say, the pov character is canonically full of ire towards X, I wouldn't call this character making negative statements about X either in dialogue or in thoughts bashing. Otoh, if all the characters in the story follow suit and declare how much X sucks, while X never gets a positive word out, I'd call that bashing. If you yourself loathe a character - and it happens, to me, too - who'd usually be present in the story and feel uncomfortable writing them in a non-negative manner, I'd rather you declare that character absent from canon for whatever reason works best.
Character death: if it serves the story, go for it. It wouldn't be a problem for me.
18th Century Frederician RPF:
Bless you for dabbling this fandom of 18th century politics and drama! Any of the following scenarios would make me a happy reader indeed:
- young Fredersdorf gets posted to Küstrin and meets a very traumatized-by-Katte's death crown prince Friedrich. A relationship that will last decades ensues, but how, given the state Fritz was in and the very justified paranoia he had in general, did Fredersdorf manage to win his trust, never mind affection? And Fredersdorf: the last man getting close to to the crown prince had just been executed by the King. Does it occur to him this might happen to him as well, especially since his rank is far lower than Katte's has been, so there wouldn't even be any family protests? It seems to me a promising set up for a suspenseful H/C fic indeed.
- Queen Sophia Dorothea certainly had the husband from hell, but especially if you read Wihelmine's memoirs: she could be emotionally abusive, too, especially towards her daughter. She also had had a traumatic childhood herself, with her mother, George I of England's wife, trying, and failing, to run away with her lover and getting locked up for life as a result, with the love mysteriously dissappearing while the rest of Europe is betting on George I having him killed. The obvious parallels to what happened to her son and Katte must have occured to Sophia Dorothea in 1730. How does she feel about that? Especially given that she avoided visiting her mother in the later's captivity when she could have done despite said mother waiting for her, in vain, when Sophia Dorothea visited Hannover? Does her bad relationship with her oldest daughter reflect the non-relationship she has with her mother? If you want to go slightly AU and have Sophia Dorothea visit her mother after all, in the wake of the Katte catastrophe, by all means. Or maybe she does decide to talk it out with Wilhelmine?
- Maria Karolina Orzelska: was August the Strong's illegitimate daughter, may or may not have been also his mistress, definitely flirted with young Friedrich during the legendary awkward state visit Friedrich Wilhelm and Fritz made in Dresden, and got on well enough with him to later secretly visit him in Berlin. The notoriously misogynistic and definitely homosocial Fritz is even complimentary about her in a letter to Voltaire years and years later and proclaims to have loved her. Now this could have been het-posing for Voltaire's benefit - or teenage Friedrich did indeed have that one fling. (His sister Wilhelmine definitely thought so.) In any event, you could see why the two of them might have hit it off: children of ego-tastic royal fathers on whom their life depended. If Orzelska as a bastard had more freedom, she also had less protection (no one would have protested on her behalf if her father would have drowned her in the Elbe). She'd grown up in Paris, the city Fritz dreamed about but would never see, and no matter whether or not incest was going on, she was sexually experienced and living at the most licenteous courts in Europe at a point when he'd managed some fumblings at best and had a father who regarded all non-marital sex as of the devil. She liked to dress as a man; he was constantly getting called effeminate by said father. So: Orzelska and Fritz. What did she think of him? Can be anything between genuine sympathy and affection to wondering whether he could be her meal ticket out of Dresden, your choice. Did she meet anyone else - Wilhelmine, Keith, Katte, even, though this would have been before Fritz knew him - during her secret visit to Berlin? She died in 1769; did she ever try to meet Friedrich again once he was King, or did she think better of it? How did she feel about him invading Saxony? Even a casual encounter by accident when they're both middle-aged and very, very different people from those two youngsters might be interesting. (Mind you, given she spent most of her later life in France and Italy, she could also run into Wilhelmine during the later's journey there during the 1750s.) Orzelska simply intrigues me, and I'd love to read more.
Benjamin January Mysteries - Barbara Hambly: Ben's mother Livia is both one of the most memorable and most chilling characters of the series, and yet you can see how she got there. Give me Livia's pov on her daughters, both the one she cut ties with and the one she trained to succeed in her footsteps. What does she make of her daughter-in-law? When she was still a slave, did she ever consider running away or was she always convinced her chances at freedom were better trying to use a white man?
It may or may not have happened yet in canon - I haven't been able to read the most recent novels, though I plan to - but if it hasn't: feel free to imagine how a Livia-Marie Laveau encounter would go.
Dominique and Chloe:their relationship after all that build-up angst was such a delightful surprise. More about it, please. Ideally in a case fic where the two have to solve a minor or major mystery together, but I'll also take the two on a shopping expedition, buying glasses for Henri and Chloe - anything, really.
I Medici /Medici: Masters of Florence: Both broadcast seasons fulfill my inner Renaissance Melodrama need beautifully. (By the time you're writing, the third and final season might have already started, but by necessity my requests can only be inspired by the first two.)
Some thoughts and possible prompts: the gap between s1 and s2 leaves room for post-show Contessina and Cosimo. How do they deal with their newly achieved balance, do they manage to maintain it? As we see in s2, Cosimo's illegitimate son Carlo did indeed grow up in the Medici household - how did they each relate to him, what became of Maddalena? Contessina's insistence to little Lorenzo in the s2 flashbacks that he needs to make peace with the Pazzi leaves me to conclude Cosimo must have eventually made a full confession re: the Albizzi murders to her. Maybe write that scene?
I loved the mentor/protegé relationship Contessina had with her daughter-in-law Lucrezia in s1. In s2, we see Lucrezia has grown into a formidable matriarch herself. So something that's centred on that relationship would be great - maybe older Lucrezia negotiating in Rome in the present and having flashbacks to what Contessina has taught her? How did Contessina's death impact Lucrezia, given how close they were?
Missing scene(s) for Lucrezia and Piero: her siding with Lorenzo in the s2 opener is a terrible blow for him. They reconcile off screen, with the transition to his realisation only indicated by his scene with Bianca, so I would like you to show me their talking it out and making up, ideallly using their s1 backstory.
Also a missing scene: Clarice and Novella Foscari, and/or Clarice and Francesco. Given Francesco/Novella was Clarice's idea originally, maybe Novella tries to enlist her help to convince Francesco in the fallout of 2.05? Or Clarice tries on her own? How does she see Francesco going from godfather to her son and her husband's bff to sworn enemy, especially since she wasn't in Florence to witness the original Medici/Pazzi hostlity earlier? Does she try to intervene? (Conversely: maybe the ruthlessness with which Francesco kicks Novella out convinces her he's not at all who she thought he was.) Also, s3 will cover this but if you're like me and won't be able to watch it for a while, so you might like to try your hand at this: how will Clarice, faithful daughter of the church, cope with being excommunicated along with her husband and children in the wake of the Pazzi conspiracy? Does she believe the Pope sanctioned the murder of her husband and brother-in-law, does she hope he didn't (though Lorenzo clearly thinks he did)?
These are just some ideas. As you can see, they're all female-centric. While I love the male characters, too, they get ample on screen exploration, and anything centred on Contessina, Lucrezia or Clarice will win my heart.
Lastly, this is one of the few fandoms I have a NOTP in. Whatever you do, whomever you write about: please no Giuliano/Francesco.
The Last Kingdom: I've gone from being mildly fond of to definitely loving this tv series based on Bernard Cornwell's books, and would be thrilled to receive a story set in it. The Uthred and Alfred relationship in its prickly complexity pushed all my buttons, so anything focusing on it would be most welcome. (Some of my thoughts when consumating the canon are under this tag.)
One of the many things which makes me prefer tv canon over book canon is the way the tv show adds dimension to them and lets them interact with each other. Aelswith, who from Uthred's pov in the books is described in purely negative terms but on the tv show comes across as far more interesting (though still with great hostility towards Uthred and vice versa). By the second season, her marriage to Alfred comes across as strong, with Aelswith acting as councillor as much as consort, so please, unless we’re in Uthred’s pov, no Aelswith bashing. (Either of her children thinking she's wrong in her opinion of Uthred is fine, but I can't see either her daughter or her son hating her for this or not acknowledging her strengths as well.) Any exploration of Aeslwith at any point of tv canon, whether as an overall character portrait or centred on her relationships with Alfred or her children would be great. Or with Hild; their shared scene in s1 was the first time the show humanized Aelswith, after all.
Aethelflaed : anything that doesn't focus on her s2 relationship with Erik. Not that I have something against it, but much of what already exists as fanfic for The Last Kingdom is Aetheflaed/Erik, and I want something different in focus. Given Aethelflaed will end up as a ruler herself, and already has made great strides in that direction in s3; what lessons does she learn while growing up through her parents and others? How does she interact with them both as individuals and as a couple? Does she feel responsible for both Wessex and Mercia? If Erik and Uthred hadn't provided an alternative to the terrible "get ransomed and ruin Wessex, or get gangraped in public forever" choice, what would have been her plan? Did she consider suicide a la Odda?
In s3, we see her character winning over her husband's key advisor, while her husband gets ever worse. She's a realist: assassination must have occured to her, especially since she now knows her husband has tried more than once to get rid of her. What's keeping her - morals or the belief she couldn't hold Mercia yet at this point without the pretense of marriage? How does she relate to her brother? Does she think she could do as well/a better job, or does that never occur to her?
I don't think Hild and Brida ever meet, at least not in tv canon. Here, too, is a missing scene (or several) I'd love to read, as Hild's time as a warrior would make it impossible for Brida to dismiss her due to her Christianity; I could even see Brida wondering whether Hild might be who she'd have been had she been raised as a Saxon instead of with the Danes. (Not that I see them as identical, mind; I don't think Brida would have chosen becoming a nun even then, while I doubt Hild, had she been the one raised by the Danes, would have picked Ragnar the Younger - or any man.) This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1369305.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.