sobriquett

Dearest Trick or Treat author,

(September 20: this letter is still a work in progress, but there's something in each category, even if only a link to past letters! I will try and tidy this up some more in the next couple of days.)

Thank you for thinking of writing for me! Whether I'm your assignment (sorry/thank you!), you're just browsing, or you're thinking of treating: yay. This letter is long, but mostly because I've pulled together and tweaked past requests, which can otherwise be found here on Tumblr or here on Dreamwidth.

There's nothing I've requested in the past that I wouldn't be open to receiving again, and this letter is 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!

For all my fandoms, I am open to either tricks or treats, and although I've requested specifically fic in my signup, art would be a delightful gift as well.

I sometimes feel mean about the "no out of context AU" in my DNWs but, 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.

Of course, some of these ideas are complex, so bugger the setup. We have a 300 word minimum! Start in the middle, show a vignette, a snapshot, a snippet of any of these possibilities? Tags and summaries are our friends. Few of the prompts lean particularly into the trick/treat conceit, but most of them could be written or subverted one or both ways...

Above all, lovely author/artist, have fun!

Contents

1. DNWs

2. Likes & Loves

3. Smut Likes

4. Darkfic Likes

5. A Date With Death (Visual Novel)

6. Bridgerton (TV)

7. Downton Abbey

8. The Gilded Age (TV)

9. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë

10. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

11. North and South - UK TV | Elizabeth Gaskell

12. 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


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



A Date With Death (Visual Novel)

Characters: Grim Reaper | Casper (A Date With Death)

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. When the DLC was released, I did the same. 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.

At the end of day 7, sans DLC, I am extremely curious about what on earth could happen next. If you continue your relationship beyond the bet, what happens? That said, at the end of day 10, I feel the same.

• 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…

Bridgerton (TV)

Characters: Anthony/Kate, Anthony Bridgerton, Kate Sharma, Edwina Sharma, Violet Bridgerton, Daphne Bridgerton, Colin Bridgerton, Penelope Featherington

I just kind of want to watch Anthony suffer.

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?

Bees! Consequences of the gazebo scene! Canon divergence where the show characters have a similar outcome of the bee incident to the book! The responsibilities and duties of the new viscount and viscountess (real, imagined, fun or tedious)!

I really could take or leave S3, so a focus on earlier seasons would be extremely welcome, as well as fleshing out S3 in ways it really deserved!

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.

• 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 2/3? What does he think of all this? What does he have to say to Kate, Anthony, Daphne, Colin, 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
• More duels at dawn, for good or ill
• Seasonal fic - spring, summer, autumn, winter; a typical (or exceptional) moment
• 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
• Further adventures with Colin’s special tea
• Letters during Anthony and Kate’s engagement, or letters home from their honeymoon (which canonically lasts six months!)
• What’s in Colin and Penelope’s correspondence during his summer in Greece?
• What does Daphne think of her siblings' dramas? In the context of her own, and their reaction to it?
• What is it like to be a society hostess?

Downton Abbey

Characters: Mary Crawley, Matthew Crawley, Edith Crawley, Sybil Crawley, Anna Bates, Violet Crawley, Robert Crawley, William Mason, Lavinia Swire

I have requested this many times before, as you can see here. Also: GHOSTS. Also, will have seen the new movie by reveals.

The Gilded Age (TV)

Characters: Bertha Russell/George Russell

I haven’t written or read in this fandom, but I really enjoyed the show. My period drama tastes normally run a little earlier (1450-1600, 1800-1860) or later (1910-1960) and are almost entirely British, so this is new to me. I’m a raging history nerd, if you’d like to cater to that, and love a fic that delights in its historical context.

I love the complicated dynamics and tensions between the characters, their very different priorities and worldviews and the way they express or cling to or seize power. That's especially true for the Russells, who have and wield different power and have different struggles, and aren't necessarily on the same team any more, in a way that's tragic for both but especially for Bertha.

Earlier in the story, it seemed like Bertha was pushing Gladys down a path of her own choosing while supporting Larry's freedom, and George was doing the reverse with their children. That dynamic has shifted so that Bertha is pushing both of her children and George... has got his way with Larry, perhaps? I think there's something to explore there.

• Pre-canon moments? The first time they use first names? Did they grow up in a world where the rules weren't so strict? (Or perhaps theirs still were, whatever their social world said.) Where do they come from?
• What happens next? Does becoming a grandparent change one or both of them?
• Put them on the Titanic in twenty years?
• Who will they be in twenty years? Who were they twenty years ago?

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë

Characters: Jane Eyre, Edward Rochester, Adele Varens, Alice Fairfax, Bessie Lee Leaven, Maria Temple, Sarah Reed, Jane Eyre/Edward Rochester

Have requested this lots of times too! Please find previous letters here, and also pretty gif sets.

Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

Characters: Nitta Sayuri, Nobu Toshikazu, Mameha, Iwamura Ken | The Chairman

I have requested this many, many, many times before, as you can find here.

North and South - UK TV | Elizabeth Gaskell

Characters: Margaret Hale/John Thornton, Margaret Hale, John Thornton, Nicholas Higgins, Bessy Higgins, Hannah Thornton, Frederick Hale, Edith Lennox

A perennial favourite, I have requested this many times too, and shared many lovely gif sets, here.

Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel

Characters: Thomas Cromwell, Christophe, Bess Seymour, Jane Seymour, the Lady Mary, Henry VIII, Thomas Wolsey, Rafe Sadler

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 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? 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!