sobriquett

Dearest author (or artist or other talented creator),

January 11 2026: if you’re looking at this for Candy Hearts, I am in the process of filling in the blank fandoms right now - one to go! I have requested everything before and there are links to past letters in each fandom section.

Thank you for thinking of creating for me! Whether I'm your assignment (sorry/thank you) or you're thinking of treating (oooh yay) or just browsing for ideas (best of luck!): yay. This letter is long but intended to help not hinder - if you have your own idea, please don't feel restrained by any of this past the DNWs and have fun writing whatever sparks creative joy!

Because I am very bad at consistently writing letters, I am hoping to make this a kind of forever letter, and just add new fandoms as I request them in new exchanges. As such, this is a working document and might change at any time, although I'm much more likely to add things than remove! I can't think of anything I've requested in the past that I wouldn't still be thrilled to read more of. More cakes! Anyway, there's some general stuff up top then fandoms in alphabetical order. Please pick and choose whatever works for you, or nothing at all. Write what brings you joy! If you've enjoyed writing it, I will definitely enjoy it too.

The one thing that will guarantee my delight is to explore the characters in their context. In every single one of these fandoms, it is the conflict between these characters and the world they live in that fascinates me, and sometimes the conflict between a modern author/reader and the worldview of characters in that time or place. If you want to lean into any of that then I will dance with joy.

But above all, lovely creator, have fun!

1. DNWs

2. Likes & Loves

3. Smut Likes

4. Darkfic Likes

5. Bridgerton (TV)

6. Downton Abbey

7. The Gilded Age (TV)

8. The Godfather - Mario Puzo

9. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë

10. The Last Kingdom (TV)

11. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

12. North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell | UK TV

13. Star Trek: Voyager

14. Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel



DNWs

Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics | Anyone being called “Daddy” in a sexual context | Bestiality | Body Horror | Gore | Medical Experimentation | Mpreg | Mutilation | Non-Canonical Amputation | Out-of-Context AU (e.g. Modern AU, High School, Coffee Shop) | Scat | Torture | Vore

Fandom-specific DNW for Wolf Hall: No explicit M/M involving Cromwell.



Likes & Loves

5+1 Times | Alternate Endings | Angst | Backstory | Banter/Bickering | Bittersweet | Canon Compliant | Canon Divergence | Character Death | Character Death Aftermath | Character Study | Class Differences | Coming of Age | Competence | Complicated Sibling Relationships | Cultural Differences | Dark Fic | Debt & Financial Pressures | Despair | Disabled Characters | Domesticity | Different Worldviews | Enemies to Friends/Lovers | Epistolary | Examining Societal Issues | First Meetings | First Time | Fix-It | Fluff | Found Family | Friends/Lovers to Enemies | Ghosts, Literal or Metaphorical | Grief/Mourning | Grumpy Character/Sunshine Character | Historical Details | Humour | Hurt/Comfort | Last Time | Laws of Magic | Living Up/Down to Expectations | Long-Distance Friendship | Marriage of Convenience | Miscommunication | Missing Moment | Obeying Canonical Boundaries (Social/Cultural/Moral) | Outsider POV | Parent/Child Relationships | Peril | Pining | Platonic Intimacy | Politics & Intrigue | Poor Life Choices | Post-Canon | Pre-Canon | Pregnancy & Babies | Presumed Dead | Protectiveness | Redemption | Religious Elements | Reunions | Romance | Sad Endings | Secret Relationships | Starcrossed/Doomed Lovers | Uneven Power Dynamics | Unexpected/Unlikely Friendship | Unreliable Narrators | Whump | Worldbuilding



Smut Likes

Biting/Marking | Bondage | Canon Compliant/Historically Appropriate (esp. period fandoms) | Desperate Sex | Dirty Talk | Dubcon | Edging/Orgasm Delay | Fingering | First Times | Fisting | Foreplay | Hair Pulling/Touching/Playing | Last Times | Loss of virginity (either/both/all partners) | Oral (any/all combinations/intensities/setups) | Porn with Feelings | Power Imbalance (Physical or Social/Financial/Other) | Restraint/Held Down | Rough Sex | Semi-Public Sex | Sensual Details | Vanilla Sex



Darkfic Likes

Apocalypse | Betrayal | Character Death | Character Death Aftermath | Claustrophobia | Conspiracy | Debt & Financial Pressures | Degradation | Disease | Dubious Consent | Dystopia | Fire | Forced Marriage | Gaslighting | Hauntings | Humiliation | Hypothermia | Infertility | Miscarriage/Pregnancy Loss | Murder | Paranoia | Poisoning | Prison | PTSD | Shame | Suicide | Terminal Illness | Unhappy Endings



Bridgerton (TV)

I liked season 1, loved season 2, can take or leave season 3. (Anthony is the highlight of this entire damn show for me, so I think there's direct correlation between my opinion of each season and the amount of his nonsense it contains.)

One thing Bridgerton doesn’t focus on enough (to my taste) is the realities of that lifestyle: social position and positioning, the responsibilities and expectations shouldered by the characters (however light we may consider them from a busy 21st century life, I imagine many of them would disagree, and the social season is exhaustingly nonstop), the gulf between high society and, well, regular society. (It nods to it, but never faces it full on.) I am a history nerd and will delight in anything that dances around the realities of the world, even shined up and sanitised and (especially) in Bridgerton’s parallel reality. But also, I just want to read about these characters bickering, laughing, generally interacting.

I love the mix of arrogance and angst in Anthony, the gap between what he thinks his duty is and what it actually is. I love Kate’s courage and lack of taking anyone’s shit, how secure she is until she isn’t, and when she butts heads with anyone - especially Anthony. I love Anthony’s actual relationships with his siblings and the different dynamics with each of them, and I am curious to know how Kate fits in. Is she more of a friend, a sister, a mother, a mix, something different? How do Kate and Simon get on as outsiders marrying in? They come from different backgrounds in any number of ways but have many things in common. And does the queen ever set Edwina up with her nephew? Even just a first meeting could be fun! Also, how does Kate, who has spent a quarter of a century in India, find life in England? Anything exploring the differences, firsts, lasts, things she introduces to the Bridgerton family, things that make her homesick, how Anthony might experience her home if/when he goes there.

Benedict's book was my favourite of the four I read. (I noped out hard at the end of book four with the whole "I give you... my wife!" scene, I'm cringing just to think of it.) I think the ending/the arrest was a little ridiculous, but the entire series is. I love the genuine social gap between Benedict and Sophie, all the conflict there both real and imagined. Except it's not that much of a social gap, although any exploration of illegitimacy in context would be fun. There's also the interest that comes from Benedict's position as a second son, and the differences between his experiences and his brothers', particularly Anthony's: Anthony and Benedict are almost the same age, but Anthony has had the weight and responsibility of family and estate since he became an adult and that has changed him, but also given him absolute security and certainty of his place in the world; in contrast, Benedict will need to make or marry his own fortune to make him independent of his brother, and has had a vastly different experience of adulthood, having time and leisure to pursue his own choices and interests... up to a point, and he still has the restrictions of his social class.

S4 will come out during the creation period of Candy Hearts 2026, so please run with it or ignore it as you please! I'll have watched it either way.

Colin and Penelope could have such a rich future together, but I'm curious about the difficulties. It can't all be sunshine and rainbows. Lady Whistledown is going to be an albatross for Penelope for years to come: how does that change her relationships? What frictions are there between them? Is there fallout from Colin's entrapment comment, either in the moment or at a distance? How do they co-exist as writers, do they work together, is Colin jealous of Penelope's secret talent in one of his chosen pursuits? Do they travel, what do they see?

 

• Post-Gazebo fic – any consequences you please, or none at all
• Kate leaves for India
• Violet Bridgerton loses her position to Kate – her home, some of her responsibilities; how do both handle it?
• Kate and/or any/all Bridgertons torment Anthony
• Another incident with a bee
• What happened to Kate’s fear of storms?
• Somebody’s past comes back to haunt them
• An unfortunate item in Lady Whistledown’s latest issue
• Where is Simon in season 2?
• What does he think of all this?
• What does he have to say to Kate, Anthony, Daphne, anyone?
• Further exploration of Anthony’s slightly unhinged understanding of his responsibilities/duty
• This could be contrasted with Violet’s responsibilities as matriarch/mother, and her change in position with a new Lady Bridgerton in the family
• Pall Mall
• Riding and racing
• Seasonal fic - spring, summer, autumn, winter; a typical (or exceptional) moment; the English social calendar
• Anthony and Edwina get married and have immediate regret! (There’s no easy way out!)
• The charmed life breaks for one or more of the characters and they have an unpleasant brush with the real world
• Pre-canon/post-canon
• Further adventures with Colin’s special tea

Downton Abbey

This series is my comfort blanket show, I’ve seen it so many times. I wasn’t terribly interested in Mary at first, but she’s one of my favourite characters to read and write about in fic – that delicious blend of privilege, angst, dignity and projected coldness over inner warmth. I particularly enjoy her relationships with her closest allies – Anna, the Dowager, Carson. Plus, as someone with no shortage of my own siblings, her sibling relationships intrigue me too.

And then Downstairs, this curious world where they’re run off their feet all the time, but (anachronistically) well cared-for, how they have to live their lives snatched between mealtimes and clothes changes and their weekly half-day. For all the restrictions they’re subjected to (no followers, a curfew, maintaining the dignity of the house at all times), this is a good life, and perhaps an easier one than some of their friends and family might know. It’s such an isolated bubble in the world, I’d be curious for you to explore some of that. What if any of the characters, upstairs or down, brush up against the real world?

 

• Pre-canon/first meetings/childhood
• Do any of these characters have advice for others? Is it welcomed or resented, followed or discarded, sensible or mad?
• Bates is hanged, the story breaks; Anna and Mary go to America
• The inevitable passage of time
• Anything during the war, or WW2 if you want to go post-canon
• What if the Kemal Pamuk episode went differently?
• Do Anna and Mary talk about it again? Do Edith or Sybil actually overhear, does anything change?
• What if Mary and Matthew got together at any other time? Either as a one-off with regrets, or all the way to the altar?
• Matthew Crawley Lives
• Sybil Crawley Lives
• Matthew/Sybil meet their children; what are they like as parents?
• Living in the gaps in the house routine (all relationships) - how do they fit a life in around all the meals and costume changes and clockwork routine of a big house?
• A break in dignity
• Do ghosts walk the halls of Downton Abbey?
• Comfort and support
• A happily ever after
• What does the future hold?
• Letters to and from the front during the war
• Violet’s correspondence with Edith and Rosamund while they are away “practicing their French”
• Did anyone else hear Guy Dexter’s offer to Barrow and think “what the fuck that is too good to be true run Thomas run”? Because I did. There are a thousand ways that could go horribly, terribly wrong, and almost none in which it could go right. (Period-typical homophobia, and classism, they’re doubly fucked.) But Thomas can be a romantic and is open to taking risks and definitely isn’t happy in service even as butler, so maybe he’d take the offer. I’d be open to reading any outcome of that decision.
• Either Bates (or later Anna) is convicted for murder! And hanged, no miracles! What happens then?
• How did Mrs Hughes and Mrs Patmore first meet? Were they both in their senior roles at the top of their departments then, or did they work their way up together?
• Any missing moments.
• Do Anna and Mary correspond while Anna is in prison? Or at any other time when they’re separated? Or have anything to do with the other’s correspondence?
• Isobel and Violet often send quick notes to one another. A dispute played out by hand-delivered notes between Crawley House and the Dower House? Do they correspond when one flees to France (Isobel during the war, Violet during the hospital battle with Cora)?
• Do the Crawley sisters keep in touch once they’re married? Did one or more of them keep a diary at any point? Do they open one another’s letters, accidentally or deliberately? Please feel free to write about just Mary and Edith if you want to write about a later part of canon, or keep Sybil alive, or do whatever works for you.
• Violet has a lot of advice for Mary, and is not always verbally demonstrative. Perhaps she commits some of this to paper, or vice versa?
• Scandal in the papers? Family announcements? A write up of a society wedding?
• What is life like in Ireland for Tom and Sybil?
• Do any of the characters ever feel a moment of true despair?
• What if Matthew had died in the war?
• What does the future hold for these characters?
• How did Robert, Cora and Violet get on in the 1890s?
• What was Carson like with Mary/Edith/Sybil as children? Does it parallel his relationship with their children?
  
  

The Gilded Age (TV)

This isn’t a time and place I know a lot about, so please show me more of the world if you like. Otherwise, I am interested in the complicated dynamics and tensions between these characters and what they represent, their very different priorities and worldviews and the way they express or cling to or seize power.

After three seasons, I am still most intrigued by the Russells. Where did they come from? How did they get to where they are? That delicious scene where George buys out the charity event remains a highlight of the whole series, and it's hard to see George and Bertha as distant as they are in S3. How did they really get there? How do they come back together? Is it two steps forward one step back? I'd also be delighted to see scenes from earlier in their relationship, on their way up. How was life different when they met, when they married, when Larry and Gladys were born, compared to where they are in the show? How did they help each other up?

 

• Significant first name usage: this is a world of very rigid, prescribed civility. The use of a first name rather than more formal address is a big deal, a sign of considerably intimacy. There are endless possibilities here – but it might be worth being careful of which characters might bend these rules of propriety and which simply would never (or, rather, it’s an even bigger deal when they do).
• How is protectiveness shown in this world? At least subtly, between relative equals! How do George and Bertha protect each other? What happens if they stop?
• Pre-canon moments, esp. for Agnes & Ada or Bertha/George
• What was Agnes’ marriage like? How was it for Ada and Oscar to live in their household?
• What if Marian had run away with Mr Raikes?
• Characters protecting one another
• Significant first name usage (this is a world of extremely rigid social rules – to break them or vary them is a big deal, and sign of considerable intimacy.)
• Does Ada have any power in her relationship with her sister?
• Peggy starts to find greater success as a writer – but the piece that’s raised her profile was a subject about which she should not have written
• Bertha or George Russell supporting one another (or any other relationship)
• Bertha/George have a disagreement about parenting their children (they each support their child of the opposite gender, but each want their other child to follow closely in their footprints)
• Dealing with a setback
• Epistolary fic – are characters writing to one another who shouldn’t? How do they send messages?

 

The Godfather - Mario Puzo

I want more of the women.

The narrator (yes, not necessarily the author, but definite the authorial voice!) is wildly misogynistic, where all women are essentially defined in terms of their fuckability and/or relationships with men (specific and general), and very few women are ever really the POV character. Kay is occasionally, and possibly Lucy, but that’s it. But they are all defined by their (sexual) relationships with the Corleone men – wives, lovers, mothers. I want more of the women as women. That can include the men, but no woman is defined entirely by her relationship with a man.

Apollonia says one word in the novel: “Grazie.” Who is she? Give her some flesh, a spark, to be more than just a pretty shell. What does she want? What moves and motivates her? How would she have fit in with the New York family if she’d lived? Why did she marry Michael? How much of a free choice was it, and what did she think it would lead to?

Mama Corleone is much the same, she turns up for a moment here and there to (magnificently) berate one of her sons or to feed somebody, but she also feels like a thread of steel in the lives of those around her, holding them up, but it’s unspoken. I love her Catholicism and how it both sustains her and supports her family, and how she converts Kay, and they go together to pray for the souls of their husbands. The ending of the novel is divine.

Kay is an outsider to the world for more than just having girl parts, and I’m curious how that changes her experience, and particularly how she relates to her mother-in-law (and sister-in-law) through cultural and generational differences. And once she’s in this world, how does she relate to the family and friends of her previous life? Is she more of one world than the other, or not quite part of either?

Lucy’s character arc is literally defined by her vagina and she willingly and semi-knowingly lets herself continue to be used by the family through the hotels, but there is more to her than that. Like what? How does she balance what she wants to know, what she guesses, what she thinks, what she absolutely and definitely knows? Is Sonny a lingering ghost through her life? Is she happy with Jules? Does she ever get out? Does she want to?

I don’t really know what I want, just more of the women.

 

• Apollonia and the American dream: what does she actually want? Is Michael a way to get it? (Children, comfort, fortune, adventure, love, other?)
• Does Apollonia love Michael? Does it matter? Was her courtship/marriage a pleasant or a horrible experience? What did she think her future would look like?
• What does Kay want? What does she think their future will look like?
• The same questions for Kay as Apollonia, possibly different answers. Compare the women, be thoughtful or go dark.
• I’m always intrigued by Kay’s Catholicism, especially in the book. The movie’s ending happens too, but then Kay goes to church with Mama Corleone and prays for Michael’s soul.
• Michael’s grief at losing both women in his life, in very different ways. (Does he acknowledge them as women and individuals, or only as wives/lovers?)
• A missing happy moment for any of these characters or either couple.
• A contrast between weddings – Connie’s, Apollonia’s, Kay’s, even Carmela’s, others.
• What if Apollonia had lived, and met Kay?
• What if Apollonia lives?
• What if Apollonia had lived, and they’d returned to New York, and she’d lived in the compound? What place would she find in that family, in that life, in that country? What would Mama Corleone have thought of her new daughter-in-law? Would this have impacted Michael, how would he show it? Could Apollonia be happy? Or a very mixed bag?
• I feel like Kay makes a “better” American wife for Michael, in the world he wants to move in. Would the path have unfolded differently with a different woman at his side?
• Does the ghost of Apollonia haunt Michael at later points in his life?
• How does Carmela respond to the milestones in her husband’s life? The shooting of Don Fanucci, having Clemenza and Tessio in her home, the Don’s first shooting, the rise in their fortunes, that magnificent carpet?
• Does Carmela ever regret her marriage? Was her life what she wanted? What, if anything, was lacking? How rich was her own feminine world, parallel but separate to the world of the men?
• How does her worldview differ from her daughters-in-law, her daughter? What similarities are there?

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë

Temporary link to past letters and pretty gif sets

The Last Kingdom (TV)

I asked Netflix to "Surprise Me" a few years ago and oh, it did. I watched the first few minutes. Then the first episode. Then I devoured the entire series and most of the books, although my hyperfixation is always broken before I finish them all.

I really enjoy the way different characters think/plot, their diverse values and worldviews. How Danes view death (unafraid of death but not keen on the waste of men/expecting to die with their sword in hand) and how Saxons do (a preference for dying peacefully in bed with priest/family by their side), how their religion and gods influence them, the idea of destiny. Death is a constant presence in this world, in a way it’s not in ours. Stiorra says something to her father about death coming for her mother too quickly for Gisela to see, and so Stiorra was ready and unafraid. (Terrible paraphrasing.) But death is always there, a hair’s breadth away (the snipping of a thread by the spinners) whether by violence or disease or childbirth or misadventure. Destiny is all/fate is inexorable.

I love the different worldviews, values, priorities, etc. between the different characters: the conflicting interests of ealdormen and thegns, kings, Danish leaders. The Danish reluctance to lose men is interesting, as well as the way their armies fall apart at the first defeat, no matter how individually formidable the warriors and leaders. Alfred’s building of Burhs, and the way Wessex and the Saxon kingdoms usually prefer to be on the defensive. Uhtred’s absolute scorn for Christianity, versus the way it sweeps through his world and the people he loves against all reason. I could enjoy some Yule/Christmas fic with conflict between Uhtred’s religion and Christianity, or any other more seasonal festivities. Also, political intrigue and war strategy and close friendships between unlikely pairs (and likely ones) and batshit plans that work out.

Uhtred and friends walk the line between genius and disaster so often. I am also open to the appearance of any other characters at the author’s pleasure. My likes of missing moments, banter/bickering, character death fic, found family, unlikely friendships and outsider POV all seem extra relevant here.

 

• Uhtred dealing with Aelswith living at Bebbanburg. How does she enjoy her room with a sea view? How does she try to exert her influence? Do they become grudging friends, or does Uhtred plot to get her out, or both?
• Finan and Uhtred are brothers in arms for decades. Missing moments, moments where that relationship isn’t as close, moments where that relationship gets even closer?
• A missing moment for Uhtred and Aethelflaed. Does she ever break her oath, or come close to it?
• Separately or additionally: Aethelflaed is caught breaking her oath.
• Do they perhaps keep to the letter if not the spirit of the oath?
• Alfred’s perspective on some of Uhtred’s nonsense?
• Alfred’s reflections on his deathbed? Love, hate, madness, loyalty, obligation, respect, scorn – they’re one messy tangle of thorns for these two.
• Uhtred collects bastards: Osferth, Aethelstan, Sihtric (maybe more books than TV), etc., but is not a great father to his own sons. He has a difficult relationship with his biological father but a warm and close one with Ragnar the Fearless. A fic about father/son relationships, adopted or by blood?
• A fic about Uhtred’s reunion and relationship with his second son, who appears at the very end of the series.
• Is Uhtred ever haunted by his ghosts?
• One of Uhtred’s plans goes wrong, canon divergence or post-canon.
• A prophecy or seer spelling doom, and someone/many people believe it. Does this drive them all to that doom?
• (Five?) Things Uhtred learned from Beocca, as a child or in adulthood? Was this different to what he learned from Ragnar, or was Uhtred learning from Beocca all through his life, whether he wanted to or not?
• (Five?) Battles where Uhtred fought alongside Pyrlig? Another time that Pyrlig and Uhtred conspire to shock and surprise using Pyrlig’s unlikely skills.
• Yule vs. Christmas! (Or any other Pagan vs. Christian tradition.) Uhtred celebrates Yule, as do many of his men, but others (and the majority of people in Wessex and Mercia) celebrate Christmas, and their festivities are very different. I would enjoy either a delightfully Pagan Yule fic, or a fic exploring the contrast or how the two are balance on Uhtred’s estate/at Bebbanburg (at a point in canon that suits the author!)
• The horror of the shield wall
• The spectre of sexual violence in the lives of these women
• Seven kings will die, and all of Uhtred’s women. (A prophecy from the novels that seems to have given life to the movie.)
• Prophecy, especially self-fulfilling
• A battle is lost
• A bad death (a matter of perspective)
• A hall burning
• Battle joy spills over
• On the march/on the run
• A different form of palace intrigue
• Life after Osferth?
• Osferth and Aethelstan “living the bastard life” (and the wider group having a new baby monk to tease instead of Osferth)
• Shadowwalkers
• Aethelflaed chooses a different path (with Erik, with Uhtred, anything away from her destiny as Alfred’s daughter). Does it go right or does it go wrong?
• I enjoy fics featuring character death or its aftermath and every character loses someone or is lost themselves.
• Halloween: its origins are in a time to remember the dead, including martyrs, saints and all faithful departed Christians. How is this observed or endured?

Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

Nobu/Sayuri is my rarest rare pair, although I have been lucky enough to receive fic before.

I enormously prefer the novel to the movie, mostly because there’s so much more Nobu. He’s my favourite character, for the gap between how he’s perceived and how he is. He inspires such loyalty and friendship in those who know and value him – Mameha, the Chairman, Sayuri - and yet more shallow characters (Hatsumomo) can’t stand him based only on his looks (and grumpiness). In many ways, the Chairman is the more ghost-like character in the novel, floating in the background as Sayuri develops a deep and genuine friendship with Nobu despite their differences. Her entire fantasy of the Chairman is based on a five-minute encounter and a hanky and then she essentially doesn’t speak to him for a decade, and I wish she’d made a different choice. Nobu would have been an active choice, rather than continuing down the path she set as a child without consideration for how she’s changed as she’s grown up and seen more of the world. I understand Sayuri’s heartbreak knowing that having Nobu as her danna would preclude any possibility of such a relationship with the Chairman, but it would open up a world of other possibilities, and to kindness from a different source, as well as a more even relationship. Neither Nobu nor Sayuri know much kindness in their lives, and I really enjoy their repartee. It’s one of the few times Sayuri seems to have fun.

Nobu is missing an arm and disfigured by burning; there’s no need to romanticise or sanitise these parts of his character, but I am curious about their effects on any long-term or physical relationship with Sayuri (either practically or just in his head).

 

• What if Sayuri chose Nobu instead, and accepted him as her danna before the war?
• What if she accepted him after the war?
• Sayuri appreciating Nobu, with optional romantic edge
• How does Nobu feel when he realises what Sayuri’s done? What does he know, what is he told, does he try to find out more? Is his respect once lost gone forever?
• Sayuri could be the Chairman’s but he could never be hers – he already had a wife – but Nobu would have been hers. Would she want this? What would Sayuri want, given the opportunity?
• Nobu and Sayuri being affectionate to one another, even gruffly and distractedly.
• How would an evening with Sayuri, Nobu and the Chairman unfold? With or without Mameha to guide Sayuri’s choices to their advantage?
• Exploring the differences between the pair – in power (financial, sexual, influence), personal freedom, status, ability to make their own decisions, the rules they play by.
• What do they have in common? They are both survivors, at the top of but on the outside of their respective worlds. (Teahouses, factories, okiyas, battlefields.)
• Sayuri and Nobu have an en. How else does this manifest?          
• Do Nobu and Sayuri ever meet again, in the future? Are things frosty, all bridges burned?
• What if Pumpkin does bring Nobu instead of the Chairman?

North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell | UK TV

This fandom: oh, my beloved. I live in a Northern England mill town, so this is kind of my history.

I love the context – the history, the mills, the debates, the women’s lives – but I also love the characters. I love the contrasts between north and south, old and new, leisure and trade, masters and workers, masculinity and femininity. And the longing looks, the touches. It’s Pride and Prejudice with higher stakes. (Although arguably there are three worlds – Margaret’s, John’s, and Higgins’.) There’s so much pride in all these characters, and they’re all looking down on each other, and then they start to understand one another. There’s such a rich setting to explore here - time, place, convention, mores, differences in education and worldview…

So whether you want to write something political or domestic or both, I’ll be thrilled either way.

The train scene: I have feelings. That is an inappropriate amount of PDA for 1850s England and they should be halfway down the aisle in about two and a half minutes. Also, wtf unmarried lady just getting on a train with unrelated gentleman, while not wearing a hat. Shocking stuff. Shameful. Tut tut.)

Anyway, this is a lot. Sorry not sorry.

 

• What happens next for Margaret and Mr. Thornton? How does Margaret feel, without her old family up north? What about her brother? How does the mill fare?
• Post-canon train scene consequences, for good or ill.
• This predates the Married Women’s Property Act, but do they develop a more equitable marriage than that, in terms of ownership and management of the mill?
• How does Margaret’s new position affect her relationship with the workers, and how does this affect Thornton?
• How does she fit in with Thornton’s family, especially his mother? What about John in Margaret’s family, in the south?
• What if Margaret and Thornton didn’t reconcile, because of circumstances? Could Margaret find happiness with Henry? What kind of life might they have together? What would their relationship be based on? Friendship, respect, admiration, love, passion? Shared goals? I’m not overly sentimental about Thornton, however you wish to deal with his spectre – although killing him off might be a little harsh. Does Henry realise how serious a rival he was? This doesn’t need to be 100% happy, if Margaret (or Henry!) are regretting other paths not taken…
• Does something in one of Margaret or John’s (very different) pasts come back to haunt them?
• Wedding fic! How does their wedding day/night go? How do their friends and relatives behave and respond?
• How do they pass their engagement? Do they write to one another? Do they keep finding excuses to be in one another’s company? Do they keep finding themselves alone in back drawing rooms?
• Do they live with Mrs Thornton? How do they all get on?
• Do Margaret and John have a traditional marriage or a more equitable one in terms of ownership and management of the mill?
• What if John and Margaret’s marriage, despite their love for one another, isn’t accepted in either the north or south? John is not the right sort of man in the eyes of Margaret’s southern friends and relatives – a manufacturer, not a gentleman, soiled by his engagement with trade and industry and direct work, and even more so because of his father’s past and suicide. Margaret is not acceptable to society in the north as an outsider who meddles where she’s not wanted, doesn’t understand their world, and represents an old world with no relevance to their new modern vision. She says the wrong things, values the wrong things, has the wrong priorities in their eyes, took one of their most eligible men. Can they be happy in such circumstances? Society might think, alternately, that they either married to avert scandal (which means scandal happened) or Thornton wants Margaret’s fortune (which reflects badly on him in the south and Margaret in the north).
• We don’t see a second/successful proposal on the show. Does one happen?
• Could the first proposal have gone differently?
• More a thought than a prompt: Margaret has less money but more status than Thornton in most of the world, but not in Milton.
• What if Margaret (or John) was seriously injured in the riot? What if the riot goes more wrong? Is there further disaster at the mill, or in the police response? Does the incident become even more infamous?
• John, Hannah and Nicholas have tasted poverty – or at least true difficulty. Margaret might think she has, but she has not. Is there conflict there?
• Margaret finding her place in post-canon Milton? At home, in the mill, in town.
• John buys some of the Hales’ furniture from the auction after Margaret’s parents die. Does this come back to Margaret in her married life?
• How does John cope with the death of his father, and all the huge and sweeping changes that makes to his life?
• Is Thornton traumatised, or at least significantly affected, by the loss of the mill and his close brush with disaster? Does it colour his relationships with his mother, who he nearly failed, and his new wife who saved him, and/or his management of the mill once he owns it? Can he feel the ghost of his father’s failure and shame?
• Victorian bankruptcy was a deliberately cruel, destructive, public, shameful process, designed to grind a man down to nothing at all. Does Thornton go through this, either during the novel or post-canon? Does he survive, or is he weighed down by grief and shame? He is so very conscious of his place in the world, his responsibilities to his peers, his workers, and his family. And a bankrupt man has pointedly failed in every one of these things – and it would all be so terribly, terribly public. (Very interested in stories about financial pressures/public shaming/private support.)
• How does Thornton feel when the mill fails? How does he cope? There’s a world of difference between John Thornton’s failure as a business owner and his father’s - probably because of John’s trauma from his father’s experience. I would love to see this explored in more detail. Victorian bankruptcy was a harrowing, public, nuclear thing.
• How exactly did John, Hannah and Fanny manage after the ruin of the older Mr Thornton?
• Do Margaret and Hannah ever come to an understanding? Does Margaret ever rise in Hannah’s estimation? Do they have and/or express any kind of mutual respect? Post-canon, domestically, how do they get on? How do they share the household duties and the man they have in common? How do they reconcile their very different ways of looking at the world? Or do they live apart? How do separate households work?
• Mrs Thornton is a respected woman in her world. Is that because she stays in her lane, operates in a feminine role and sphere? (In the novel, and from an historical perspective, she wouldn’t have had any involvement in the mill, in contrast to the supervisory way she acts in the adaptation. But that’s neither here nor there.) In contrast, Margaret is not – she acts publicly, emotionally, explores outsider her sphere.
• What do outsiders looking in think of events? Particularly Edith, from her life of relative comfort and ease in London/Corfu, or Frederick’s very different life in Spain?
• Margaret’s relationship with her brother is hardly explored at all. After ten or more years apart, how is their relationship as adults, particularly after their parents’ deaths?
• What does Frederick think of Margaret’s inheritance, her relationship with Thornton, the life she leads? Does he have a say? Does he think he has a say? He’s her only living male relative.
• What if Frederick Hale came to post-canon Milton? Do any of these characters visit him in Spain? What does he think of his sister’s husband?
• What does Margaret think of Fred’s life, of Dolores, of his work, of his home and prospects?
• How do the Hale siblings cope with the unexpected death of their father, so soon after their mother?
• Do Thornton and Higgins ever become true friends, recognising the positive qualities in one another, finding things in common?
• Do Margaret and Mary develop a more substantial friendship? With Bessy gone, both Margaret and Mary suffer a great loss, and Mary becomes a greater part of Margaret’s world but never quite a friend. Does that change? How might they help and support each other in difficult times? Mary Higgins suddenly finds herself with some degree of responsibility for six children; Margaret loses her home again, and her parents, and her world is turned upside down. There must be room for friendship to grow there, even if only in a shared desire for Bessy’s advice, particularly with Mary growing to fill the hole Bessy left in her world in more ways than one.
• Thornton’s relationship with his mother is defined by many things – their shared view of the world, their shared experience of poverty, the help and support each provides the other and the shape that support takes, the way that it’s not even John & Hannah & Fanny, but John & Hannah… and Fanny, an afterthought, a nuisance, separate and different from her mother and brother.
• How does Hannah cope with (or does she not, or is she not) usurped as the most important man in her son’s life by his wife?
• Disaster at the mill! Fire, accident, disease. Mills were a very, very dangerous place to work.
• Any more flavour/colour of life in Milton.
• Christmas in the big house at the mill. What does their day look like? What gifts do they buy/give one another?
• What if the Thorntons (possibly including Hannah) go to London for Christmas with Edith and her family, Henry, Mrs Shaw?
• Articles about this unexpected marriage? Would there be a difference between reporting in Milton and reporting in London?
• Along the same theme, what about Outsider POV on the relationship via letters, with family and friends writing to one another? How does Hannah write the news to Edith? Mrs Shaw, Edith, the Lennoxes? How does Frederick find and/or take the news?
• Letters between Margaret and John during their engagement, or perhaps when they are obliged to be apart during their marriage.
• An ONDB/Wikipedia article on John, Margaret, even Higgins, recapping their life and successes?

Star Trek: Voyager

One of my favourite themes in fic for this fandom is the conflict between the isolation and aloofness demanded by Janeway’s command position (and particularly her strict views on this and the more pragmatic position others may take) and her own social and emotional needs. Serving on a starship is a deadly business at the best of times, and times on Voyager are especially fraught. Janeway is in an impossible position in impossible circumstances, even by Starfleet standards - heightened danger, total isolation, and she needs (both for her own sanity and in line with regulations, and to maintain her authority) to keep command-appropriate distance. But she’s a social creature, warm-hearted, and she loves her crew. She just can’t let them too close.

I love the angst that comes from that, and I love it when a writer either works out a meaningful and thoughtful situation or deals with the consequences one way or another – friendship or romance. There’s such rich soil for both of these types of relationships, in relation to her rapport with just about any canon character, and in the characters’ different backgrounds and worldviews alongside their shared goals.

Historically, I’ve shipped J/C (since I was, like, eight - since before I knew shipping was a thing) and haven’t read many other Voyager ships. However, I have an open mind. Persuade me. I think I would prefer no established non-canon ships except J/C; if you go romance then I think you need to talk me into it through a first time fic. That said, I don’t mind a wonky timeline if you want to start in the middle and flash back, just persuade me…

While I do ship Chakotay and Janeway a bit (a lot), I can understand all the reasons it never happened – the importance of the command relationship, Janeway’s opinion that she should hold herself separate from her crew for a multitude of reasons. But these two characters, Tuvok and Chakotay, are the exception to that distance (most of the time), and each has a rich history and relationship. All three are also from very different cultures, yet joined and succeeded in the same organisation. Their diverse experience has got to be rich soil for fics to grow in. A missing moment, a trope, one character’s POV of a scene, I don’t mind, I’d just love to read more of one of these relationships and their distinctive flavours.

I’ve also seen all the movies, most of TOS, all of TNG, a bit of DS9 and ENT, all of Discovery, Picard and Strange New Worlds, a bit of Lower Decks and none of Prodigy. Light crossovers welcome.

I'm also just going to throw this magnificent Tumblr post at you.

 

• Voyager is damaged in a way they can’t repair, and actually affects their journey home
• Janeway makes some changes after getting her Dear John letter in ‘Hunters’
• Somebody is presumed dead
• Chakotay's frustrations on Resolutions when Janeway is fixated on the monkey and not him?
• A moment of letting one's guard down
• Command structure and interpersonal dynamics
• A moment of vulnerability
• Things they’ve lost, paths not taken
• Scuttlebutt
• Fix-it
• Resolutions fic
• Year of Hell fic
• A recurring gesture/a new habit
• Post-canon - keeping in touch/a new normal
• Emotional comfort - Janeway mourns a loss? Does she blame herself? Do others?

Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel

Fandom-specific DNW for Wolf Hall: No explicit M/M involving Cromwell.

It's strange how this has become my comfort blanket audiobook (at least up to around 1539...); I have probably listened to Ben Miles’ narration of this trilogy on more days than I haven’t over the past year and a half. I don’t know how or why I let this pass me by fifteen years ago, but I am a late and devoted convert.

It’s a combination of things, I think: the richness of the world – the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, the social hierarchy and the language and the culture and customs; it’s the family/found family of Cromwell’s household; the sophisticated play with history and historical events, the way it all feels so uncertain even when you know how it ends; the depth and complexity of Cromwell’s consciousness, his perceptions and feelings, his history and memory as it unfolds; the humour of the books, like Sion Madoc on the Thames; themes of language and linguistic dexterity, both different languages and different keys in the same language; the layering of themes of England and Englishness, the creation of a nation and the writing of history (personal and political), the development of modern England, modern Europe, the modern world, which is happening in real time before Cromwell’s eyes and he’s directing it while so many of his contemporaries refuse to see it. There’s more, but let’s move on before I write a dissertation on why I love this series.

My favourite scenes of the series are often those where Cromwell interacts with women, either with a romantic undercurrent — Mary Boleyn, Jane and Bess Seymour, his wife — or an antagonistic one: Catherine of Aragon, Margaret Pole, or they’re the funny ones. Often they’re both – like Cromwell having one conversation with his sister-in-law and another with his nephew at the same time, or the comedy/horror in the garden with Bess Seymour. If you can invoke any of that, I will fall over with delight. I do love to consider the paths not taken.

I am also open to Cromwell being very much a character while also largely absent through an outsider POV. If you don’t want to get inside Cromwell’s head, what do those around him think of him?

 

• What happens to Christophe after his actions in the final moments of the series? If he lives, does he continue to use the name Christophe Cremuel, sorry Cromwell?
• What would have been different if one or both of Cromwell's daughters had lived? Would he have bought Grace a title? Would Anne have married Rafe, or pursued her studies to the very end of what was possible and perhaps beyond? Would they have met Henry? Would they have gone to court, played a part in the constant tumult of the queen’s rooms?
• Fuck it, wish fulfilment: what if Cromwell's cry for mercy works? Or what if he never falls at all? Give him a summer evening at Launde with his family.
• What if Cromwell had pursued Jane Seymour? The consequences for England might be a bit too much to consider, but what about for him? Would she have perplexed him, kept him sharp? Would she have lived?
• Or if he had let the confusion with Bess Seymour stand, what then?
• There are women in his life, paid by the hour, or at least it's strongly implied. Why are they excluded from the narrative?
• Wolsey's ghost is more a shadow of Cromwell's rich imagination, but what if he was... more literal?
• How do other characters experience the horror, terror and uncertainty of Cromwell's fall?
• Does Cromwell's ghost follow Rafe through his remaining half-century of royal service?
• I have in the depths of my hard drive, a few thousand words of Cromwell/Mary, in which they do marry. I'd love to read someone else's thoughts on how that might go!
• Does Cromwell manipulate history and the historical record on any other occasions, as well as in the wake of Henry's collapse in January 1536? I am a thorough and knowledgeable nerd in this area; you cannot possibly be too obscure for me. (But I'm not going to hold you to perfect accuracy either, honest!)

Dear Yuletide author,

Thank you for thinking about writing for me! If you took the pinch hit, hooray/thank you! If you're here for potential treats then I am also delighted, as treats are both enabled and welcome and I'm hopeful of writing some of my own.

It has been the Year of Audible for me, with four of these five fandoms being books I have listened to this year. If you've come here for A Date WIth Death (which, looking at the signup summary at the time of writing, seems most likely) then I heartily recommend all the other novels to you but ADWD is very much the red herring of the bunch.

I tend to write very long letters because that's what I prefer to receive in return, but please don't feel bound by anything here. I'm hoping to give lightbulbs not limitations. That said, in the unlikely event you want to know more, my past letters for all exchanges can be found here.



Contents

1. Unenforceable DNWs
2. Likes & Loves
3. Smut Likes
4. Darkfic Likes
5. A Date With Death (Visual Novel)
6. The Godfather - Mario Puzo
7. That Bonesetter Woman - Frances Quinn
8. Wolf Den Trilogy - Elodie Harper
9. Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel



DNWs (of course not enforceable because I failed to put them in my signup so they're really more Dislikes)

Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics | Anyone being called “Daddy” in a sexual context | Bestiality | Body Horror | Gore | Medical Experimentation | Mpreg | Mutilation | Non-Canonical Amputation | Scat | Torture | Vore



Likes & Loves

5+1 Times | Alternate Endings | Angst | Backstory | Banter/Bickering | Bittersweet | Canon Compliant | Canon Divergence | Character Death | Character Death Aftermath | Character Study | Class Differences | Coming of Age | Competence | Complicated Sibling Relationships | Cultural Differences | Dark Fic | Debt & Financial Pressures | Despair | Disabled Characters | Domesticity | Different Worldviews | Enemies to Friends/Lovers | Epistolary | Examining Societal Issues | First Meetings | First Time | Fix-It | Fluff | Found Family | Friends/Lovers to Enemies | Grief/Mourning | Grumpy Character/Sunshine Character | Historical Details | Humour | Hurt/Comfort | Last Time | Laws of Magic | Living Up/Down to Expectations | Long-Distance Friendship | Marriage of Convenience | Miscommunication | Missing Moment | Obeying Canonical Boundaries (Social/Cultural/Moral) | Outsider POV | Parent/Child Relationships | Peril | Pining | Platonic Intimacy | Politics & Intrigue | Poor Life Choices | Post-Canon | Pre-Canon | Pregnancy & Babies | Presumed Dead | Protectiveness | Redemption | Religious Elements | Reunions | Romance | Sad Endings | Secret Relationships | Starcrossed/Doomed Lovers | Uneven Power Dynamics | Unexpected/Unlikely Friendship | Unreliable Narrators | Whump | Worldbuilding


Smut Likes

Biting/Marking | Bondage | Canon Compliant/Historically Appropriate (esp. period fandoms) | Desperate Sex | Dirty Talk | Dubcon | Edging/Orgasm Delay | Fingering | First Times | Fisting | Foreplay | Hair Pulling/Touching/Playing | Last Times | Loss of virginity (either/both/all partners) | Oral (any/all combinations/intensities/setups) | Porn with Feelings | Power Imbalance (Physical or Social/Financial/Other) | Restraint/Held Down | Rough Sex | Semi-Public Sex | Sensual Details | Vanilla Sex



Darkfic Likes

Apocalypse | Betrayal | Character Death | Character Death Aftermath | Claustrophobia | Conspiracy | Debt & Financial Pressures | Degradation | Disease | Dubious Consent | Dystopia | Fire | Forced Marriage | Gaslighting | Hauntings | Humiliation | Hypothermia | Infertility | Miscarriage/Pregnancy Loss | Murder | Paranoia | Poisoning | Prison | PTSD | Shame | Suicide | Terminal Illness | Unhappy Endings



A Date With Death (Visual Novel)

Characters: Grim | Casper, Main Character


If only worldbuilding had been a tag in this fandom! Unfortunately I seem to have said I’d like both characters, but if you want to take a very light touch approach to including the MC and focus on Grim and his world, that works for me. Also, I will have played the new DLC by Yuletide reveals if you’d like to include content from that. (Update 15 Dec: yep, all four endings, ouch my feelings.)

I don’t know what it was about this that got in my head, but it did. Over a couple of days, I played it through until I’d seen all five endings. And months later I still can’t hear gentle background muzak without being straight back in this game in my head.

There are so many delicious tropes in here. There are nicknames, delayed name reveals, Azrael, so much flirting, canonical soul bonding/telepathy (and explicit reference, if you choose, to that being useful for sex), starcrossed lovers, and more I can’t remember.

I am extremely curious about what on earth could happen next. If you continue your relationship beyond the bet, what happens?

• Does the afterlife come looking for Grim? Does that place you or him in danger?
• Does he fit into your life, your apartment? Do you need to leave it?
• Spending too long in the mortal realm is bad for him, tips his soul out of balance towards light and if his soul is not balanced then he dies – so how does he/you bring back the darkness?
• How does the afterlife function? Are there really nine hells, or is that blasphemy and there are, like, eight or something?
• Mind bridges and soul bonding – does that become regular, routine, perhaps permanent?
• What is Grim’s past? How did he become a reaper? Did he have a human life?
• Perhaps follow the ending where the character becomes a reaper too, in the DLC – explore the bureaucracy, the vocation, the training, your gift/nature. Do you take an oath, live by and learn the reaper code?
• First times all round, both in the relationship and in life experiences.
• Use elements of the bad ending even in the good ending? I bloody love angst and peril.
• And what exactly are soul babies?

One virtue of the visual novel is the extent to which you can customise your experience – character, name, pronouns, compliment style, appearance, pet, decoration, etc. I have typically played with female characters with she/her pronouns and that would be my soft preference for fic, but that’s not a hill to die on and I don’t think it’s totally out there to write a fic that can be read ambiguously. I also don’t hate second person…



The Godfather - Mario Puzo

Characters: any of Apollonia Vitelli Corleone, Carmela Corleone, Kay Adams Corleone, Lucy Mancini


Okay, so this is actually more or less copied from last year, except someone left some very insightful comments on that letter so I’ve reworked it with those in mind. Also, I lied: I re-read (listened to) this last year. But I still want more of the women.

The narrator (yes, not necessarily the author, but definite the authorial voice!) is wildly misogynistic, where all women are essentially defined in terms of their fuckability and/or relationships with men (specific and general), and very few women are ever really the POV character. Kay is occasionally, and possibly Lucy, but that’s it. But they are all defined by their (sexual) relationships with the Corleone men – wives, lovers, mothers. I want more of the women as women. That can include the men, but no woman is defined entirely by her relationship with a man.

Apollonia says one word in the novel: “Grazie.” Who is she? Give her some flesh, a spark, to be more than just a pretty shell. What does she want? What moves and motivates her? How would she have fit in with the New York family if she’d lived? Why did she marry Michael? How much of a free choice was it, and what did she think it would lead to?

Mama Corleone is much the same, she turns up for a moment here and there to (magnificently) berate one of her sons or to feed somebody, but she also feels like a thread of steel in the lives of those around her, holding them up, but it’s unspoken. I love her Catholicism and how it both sustains her and supports her family, and how she converts Kay, and they go together to pray for the souls of their husbands. The ending of the novel is divine.

Kay is an outsider to the world for more than just having girl parts, and I’m curious how that changes her experience, and particularly how she relates to her mother-in-law (and sister-in-law) through cultural and generational differences. And once she’s in this world, how does she relate to the family and friends of her previous life? Is she more of one world than the other, or not quite part of either?

Lucy’s character arc is literally defined by her vagina and she willingly and semi-knowingly lets herself continue to be used by the family through the hotels, but there is more to her than that. Like what? How does she balance what she wants to know, what she guesses, what she thinks, what she absolutely and definitely knows? Is Sonny a lingering ghost through her life? Is she happy with Jules? Does she ever get out? Does she want to?

I don’t really know what I want, just more of the women.

• Apollonia and the American dream: what does she actually want? Is Michael a way to get it? (Children, comfort, fortune, adventure, love, other?)
• Does Apollonia love Michael? Does it matter? Was her courtship/marriage a pleasant or a horrible experience? What did she think her future would look like?
• What does Kay want? What does she think their future will look like?
• The same questions for Kay as Apollonia, possibly different answers. Compare the women, be thoughtful or go dark.
• I’m always intrigued by Kay’s Catholicism, especially in the book. The movie’s ending happens too, but then Kay goes to church with Mama Corleone and prays for Michael’s soul.
• Michael’s grief at losing both women in his life, in very different ways. (Does he acknowledge them as women and individuals, or only as wives/lovers?)
• A missing happy moment for any of these characters or either couple.
• A contrast between weddings – Connie’s, Apollonia’s, Kay’s, even Carmela’s, others.
• What if Apollonia had lived, and met Kay?
• What if Apollonia lives?
• What if Apollonia had lived, and they’d returned to New York, and she’d lived in the compound? What place would she find in that family, in that life, in that country? What would Mama Corleone have thought of her new daughter-in-law? Would this have impacted Michael, how would he show it? Could Apollonia be happy? Or a very mixed bag?
• I feel like Kay makes a “better” American wife for Michael, in the world he wants to move in. Would the path have unfolded differently with a different woman at his side?
• Does the ghost of Apollonia haunt Michael at later points in his life?
• How does Carmela respond to the milestones in her husband’s life? The shooting of Don Fanucci, having Clemenza and Tessio in her home, the Don’s first shooting, the rise in their fortunes, that magnificent carpet?
• Does Carmela ever regret her marriage? Was her life what she wanted? What, if anything, was lacking? How rich was her own feminine world, parallel but separate to the world of the men?
• How does her worldview differ from her daughters-in-law, her daughter? What similarities are there?

That Bonesetter Woman - Frances Quinn

Characters: any of Durie Proudfoot, Ellen Proudfoot, George Layton, Tom Proudfoot


Durie was a little different to the historical heroines I’m used to; she’s extremely competent at her trade, but socially awkward and generally cumbersome in a way that is highly relatable! I really enjoyed her story, memorably the slow dread leading to that nonsense with Malachy O’Neill. It’s odd but, again, relatable, to see love bombing in the eighteenth century, and I was rooting for her so hard to come back from it and overcome the bullshit of the men around her. The gender themes in this novel are genuinely interesting. Durie is not a lady, by birth, character or inclination. (She’s that bonesetter woman, not that bonesetter lady!) She’s got so many masculine characteristics (or just a total absence of traditionally feminine ones - delicacy, beauty, grace) and a sort of pining for them, and she has to learn to manipulate all her talents and her shortcomings to her advantage. In such a rigidly defined world, Durie does not neatly fit into any boxes, although George loves her anyway and I think she has the self-esteem by the end to stand wherever she damn well pleases - a good woman, one her family could be proud of, but not by the traditional definition. I’m not articulating this well at all, but I would love to see these questions come up again in the context of a happier marriage and perhaps taking stock of her life in the face of her nephew.

I would especially love some follow-up to the revelations of the final page. Durie deserves her happy ending, and if that featured all of the tag set characters then that would be quite wonderful.

• How do Durie and George build a life together? They’d have to find and build an odd place for themselves in the world. How do their children fit in?
• How does Tom get his start in life?
• Does Tom meet his Aunt Durie again?
• Does Durie become the woman she wants to be?
• What if she was wrong about the fate of Malachy O’Neill?
• Do the papers/gossip rags continue to blight Durie, or does she continue to use them to her advantage?

Wolf Den Trilogy - Elodie Harper

Characters: any of Amara, Britannica, Felix, Philos


I devoured this trilogy in less than a week as well, biting the heads off people who dared to talk to me through the second half of the third book. I listened to the first on Audible and then bought the second and third in hard copy, new, from a bookshop - an extremely rare indulgence for me, but I was enjoying them too much.
 
I’m mostly curious about other people’s perspectives on the events of the series. We see everything through Amara’s eyes. What did other characters see, believe, think, feel, do? Separately, what about the gaps in the books, such as Amara’s arrival in Rome?

There are spoilers in some of these questions, if you haven’t read the trilogy yet.
 

Amara

• Does Amara become more at ease with motherhood as time passes?
• How did she spend her time in Rome?
• Does she encounter Demetrius again?
• Amara and Felix have a lot in common - too much? - which is worth exploring.

Philos

• His POV on any of the dangerous trajectory of his life.
• How does his friendship with Menander develop?

Britannica

• What happened to her after the eruption?
• What was it like for her when she first arrived at the wolf den, her perspective?
• What was her life like in Britain? Does she ever go back? Would she want to?
• What are her formative experiences as a gladiator?

 Felix

• What was his story in the eruption?
• How did he go from being the boy who defended his mother to the man who terrorised women just like her?
• What is he afraid of?

Also, what happened to the other women of the wolf den? Do any of them find the opportunity forge new lives after the eruption?



Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel

Characters: Thomas Cromwell


I have lived in this universe in my head this year; I have probably listened to Ben Miles’ narration of this trilogy on more days than I haven’t. I don’t know how or why I let this pass me by fifteen years ago, but I am a late and devoted convert.

It’s a combination of things, I think: the richness of the world – the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, the social hierarchy and the language and the culture and customs; it’s the family/found family of Cromwell’s household; the sophisticated play with history and historical events, the way it all feels so uncertain even when you know how it ends; the depth and complexity of Cromwell’s consciousness, his perceptions and feelings; the humour of the books, like Sion Madoc on the Thames; themes of language and linguistic dexterity, both different languages and different keys in the same language; the layering of themes of England and Englishness, the creation of a nation and the writing of history, the development of modern England, modern Europe, the modern world, which is happening in real time before Cromwell’s eyes and he’s directing it while so many of his contemporaries refuse to see it. There’s more, but let’s move on before I write a dissertation on why I love this series.

My favourite scenes of the series are often those where Cromwell interacts with women, either with a romantic undercurrent — Mary Boleyn, Jane and Bess Seymour, his wife — or an antagonistic one: Catherine of Aragon, Margaret Pole, or they’re the funny ones. Often they’re both – like Cromwell having one conversation with his sister-in-law and another with his nephew at the same time. If you can replicate any of that, I will fall over with delight.

I’ve only requested Cromwell, but I am open to Cromwell & anyone, and Cromwell/most people done thoughtfully. I’ve started with thoughts about Cromwell and the tag set characters… and then let my imagination wander.

I am also open to Cromwell being very much a character while also largely absent through an outsider POV. If you don’t want to get inside Cromwell’s head, what do those around him think of him?

• What happens to Christophe after his actions in the final moments of the series? If he lives, does he continue to use the name Christophe Cremuel?
• What would have been different if one or both of his daughters had lived? Would he have bought Grace a title? Would Anne have married Rafe, or pursued her studies to the very end of what was possible and perhaps beyond? Would they have met Henry? Would they have gone to court, played a part in the constant tumult of the queen’s rooms?
• Fuck it, wish fulfilment: what if his cry for mercy works? Or what if he never falls at all? Give him a summer evening at Launde with his family.
• What if Cromwell had pursued Jane Seymour? The consequences for England might be a bit too much to consider, but what about for him? Would she have perplexed him, kept him sharp?
• Or if he had let the confusion with Bess Seymour stand, what then?
• There are women in his life, paid by the hour, or at least it's strongly implied. Why are they excluded from the narrative?

This has very much been the hardest section of the letter to write, so I will probably come back with more questions as they occur to me.

For now, dear author, I wish you the best of luck and very easy words in whatever you choose to work on. Happy Yuletide!