brideoffrankenstein | Yuletide 2020 Letter

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Hello! I hope you find something on here that inspires you; thank you SO much for volunteering to write a story! This is my first time doing yuletide so I hope I’m doing this right!

General likes: I like poetic, gentle stories, character studies, slice-of-lifes, and tenderness. That doesn’t mean everyone always has to be sweet and gentle or whatever (in fact I like difficulty and bitterness!) I just like things that end well and where you can tell people like and care for each other. (At the moment I’ve been stuck on stories where, even if you fuck up, it’s okay. You still deserve love and care.) I like bittersweet love stories, queer love stories, queerplatonic relationships, deep friendships, found family, and healing from trauma. I like trans characters, queer characters, neurodivergent characters, bitter people who love and are loved but don’t lose their sharpness, kind people who reach breaking point (so long as they have a happy ending), people dealing with trauma, people loving others even when it’s hard. I like slash, especially more queerplatonic sorts of slash.

General dislikes: Really shmoopy romantic stories, bashing of characters, unhappy endings, focus on noncanonical straight relationships, embarrassment.

Triggers: Illness, death from illness.

M or E-rated stories are great if you’re drawn that way, but not necessary at all.

Sex-related Good Things: Rough sex, oral, bondage, power exchange, biting, slapping, choking, consensual non-consent.

Sex-related DNWs: Watersports, scat, super romantic sex.

Ghosts (TV 2019)

Requested Character(s): Kitty

I really love the found family dynamic in Ghosts. It makes my little aromantic heart happy to see friendship treated this nicely and powerfully. I love the darker elements to Ghosts and the possibility that they all had traumatic backgrounds or deaths, but I like how the emphasis is always on friendship and healing and care.

I love Kitty because of her softness and gentleness, especially contrasted against canon’s implication that she had a traumatic upbringing and her occasional moments of sharpness. I’d love to see her less fluffy emotions and her relationship with the other characters, especially the Captain, explored. I tend to headcanon Kitty as having ADHD and if you’re able to include that that that would be wonderful.

Specific DNW: Romantic shipping between the ghosts, focus on illness (it's okay if you think Kitty died from an illness and want to include that, but background/passing mention only please)

Alan Grant Series (Josephine Tey)

Requested Character(s): Alan Grant

I really enjoy the sort of…gentlemanly, Hollywood-esque elements to Grant and how even when Tey was writing, he wasn’t your Usual Type of Detective. I like his friendships with women, and the unusualness of those relationships. I like the especially character study elements of Tey’s writing about him.

Note: My favourite of the books are The Man in the Queue and The Daughter of Time, and his cameo in The Franchise Affair, so if you’re able to focus on those that would be wonderful. I also ship him with Lamont from The Man In The Queue, but I don't want to control your direction if you're not into that!

Specific DNW: Straight Grant (any stripe of queer, including trans Grant, is fine), illness.

The Chronicles of Chrestomanci (Diana Wynne Jones)

Requested Character(s): Christopher Chant, Mordecai Roberts | Tacroy (You don't have to include both!)

Found family is a really big thing for me in this one as well! I really really love Christopher, and his relationship with all the kids he ends up accidentally adopting, officially or unofficially. I’m super into the concept of his life when he’s not on cases, and the family life he has. I love Tacroy and his relationship with Christopher, and I wish we’d seen how that developed as Christopher grew up/what it looked like when Christopher was an adult. I love the weird power dynamic between Christopher and Tacroy. I also really adore Christopher’s dandiness.

Notes: I’m perfectly fine with shipping Christopher/Tacroy so long as everyone is an adult/above age of consent (16 in my country).

Specific DNW: Illness.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (Susanna Clarke)

Requested Character(s): John Childermass, Gilbert Norrell

I love the Gothicism of canon, and again the found family elements. I love how it explores class and gender and race in this really quiet, subtle way. I love the fact that there are so few Nice characters in this book and how they chafe against each other but still care for one another, and still love each other in their own tangled ways. I love exploring what the Raven King means to Northerners. I ship Childermass/Norrell and their weird power exchange dynamic; I like Norrell/Strange too and Childermass/Norrell/Strange, especially when it’s got sort of mildly antagonistic vibes.

Specific DNW: Romantic John Childermass/John Segundus, illness.

Triggers: I’d really rather you not include Piranesi stuff as that book was a lot for me mentally and I’m still processing.

Agatha Christie’s Poirot (TV)

Requested Character(s): Hercule Poirot, Arthur Hastings

Again with the found family! The main advantage the show has over the books/stories for me is the friendship between Hastings, Poirot, Miss Lemon and Japp and how family-ish it is. Casefic is good if that’s what you’re drawn too, so long as it has those good-good found family elements. (I also run the tumblr blog aropoirot, which probably says a lot…)

Specific DNW: Straight Poirot, illness, Poirot’s death.