idan

Dear Yuletide Writer,

I'm excited you're here! Having someone who might be half a world away take the time to write me a story is already an amazing gift.

Different sections of this letter have been written at different times and are of different length. I'd be delighted with a fic for all of these fandoms nonetheless.

I read widely across all ratings and tones. I like stories which are dark and difficult, and stories which are happy. If I were to list my vague preferences which are true more often than not, I'd say that I like the general tone of the canon material, and introducing or exploring queerness, but some of my prompts might not match this description. When in doubt, refer to the fandom-specific parts of my letter. As long as you don't hit my DNWs, you'll do great.

Please have fun when writing even if you end up going your own way instead of getting inspired by my ideas. I hope you have a lovely Yuletide.

Formal likes:

• fics told through or using letters, diaries, text messages etc. as a storytelling device
• formal experiments (POVs other than the typical third person are welcome if they help tell a story better)
• visible rhythm (linguistically, structurally, interpret this as you like and I’d probably agree with you)
• a strong narrative voice
• stories that have some subtle structure to them
• sensory descriptions
• wordplay and other linguistic nonsense

Other likes:

• nature imagery (scenery, seasons, weather)
• a strong sense of place (houses, neighbourhoods, cities, countries, cultures)
• semi-closed settings with semi-arbitrary rules (schools, convents)
• characters traveling or otherwise exploring their surroundings
• characters attentively observing other characters and the world around them
• worldbuilding
• hair, including body hair
• kisses, including those not on the lips
• non-sexual nudity
• touches
• dancing
• bedsharing
• pining
• slow burns
• friends to lovers
• get-together fics
• mentor&mentee dynamics
• deep dives into the characters' psychology
• ambiguous, but life-altering relationships
• tension and intimacy between queer people and/or people of the same gender, be it platonic, emotional, romantic or erotic
• characters being surprised by their same-sex attraction (where canon-appropriate) and working through it
• when the world isn't a perfect place where everyone accepts same-sex couples, but queer friends, communities and joy can be found in it nonetheless

I don’t want the following unless otherwise specified in a prompt:

• explicit sexual content (I'm just picky so I think it's safer to DNW it altogether — however, referencing characters being sexually involved, suggestiveness, heavy make-outs etc. are all fine; let's draw the line at involving genitalia)
• BDSM
• rape/sexual assault involving requested characters
• using the words „naughty/dirty" in reference to sex
• focus on the pregnancy of a main character
• on-page permanent death of requested characters
• amnesia fic
• modern AUs for historical canons
• unrequested crossovers

Opt-ins:

• treats! (my AO3 settings allow gifts from everyone)
• interactive fiction
• drabbles

Languages I can read fics in:

• English
• Polish
• French
   

A Little Princess
Sara, Becky

Sara and Becky, similarly to Anne and Diana from Montgomery's books, are the sort of friends that I definitely thought would be great to see together romantically when they grow up. I know there are many fics about the two as an adult couple — and I'd love to read another one, honestly. It can be set when they start to figure out their romantic feelings for one another (I'm very fine with historically accurate homophobia, internalised or otherwise, but you definitely don't have to go there if you don't want to), or later, when they're an established couple (young adult? middle-aged? old?), and maybe encounter a problem that challenges them (individually or as a couple). I'm also interested in getting to know Becky more — perhaps her POV and views on life, Sara, their class differences and how they overcome them, or maybe just a story about how their class power dynamic is flipped in some way, even temporarily. And if you'd like to bring in and flesh out other characters like Sara's classmates (Lavinia? Ermengarde? they could have their own character arc in the background, or if you'd want to go wild and write, say, a reformed Lavinia forming a throuple with Sara and Becky, it could be a fascinating story), or perhaps Ram Dass (his experience of living in Britain interests me), that could be great to read, too. Or, and I've just thought of that, I wonder if either Sara or Becky (or both! why not) might grow up into a girl that's on the gender-nonconforming side once they have more freedom/wealth/experience to express it, and how they would navigate that in the society at the time.

This might also be an interesting fandom to play with some canon divergences. A role-reversal AU? Or, who knows, maybe even an AU where Sara's father never dies, and a look on how that would impact her life (would it really be a perfect one?) and personality, as well as other characters like Becky (if they became closer friends then, what would that friendship look like?).

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1670
Zofia/Rozalia
What I like about it:

• How wild their first meeting is! That Zofia secretly takes Rozalia's finger and makes it into a keepsake. What a normal thing to do after your husband injures your new friend.
• Zofia truly starts glowing when she's in love. It's very nice to see her so happy.
• Zofia and Rozalia are quite different from each other, but they just click. For a while, anyway. I like the contrasts between the way they dress and approach the world, and that they can give each other pleasure and gentleness, something they might not have thought to even want before, stuck as they are in traditonal heteronormative marriages.

Where you can go with it:

• I'd love to see a fix-it where Zofia makes a different decision in episode 8, they don't have their argument, and stay together in some way.
• A character study of Zofia and what she thinks about her faith in the light of her sapphic romance, or what she thinks of her sapphic romance in the light of her faith. This can be canon-compliant and sad, or canon-divergent and hopeful, or any combination thereof.
• Some happy or silly mid-canon moments when they still have their new relationship energy. Secret meetings! Scented letters! First, second, and thirtieth kisses!
• Rozalia's POV. What did she see in Zofia? What does she think about her own marriage and hers and Zofia's affair?
• Did Aniela ever find out the truth? She failed once, but maybe she figured it out post-canon (either in an AU where Zofia and Rozalia stay together or not)? Actually, did anyone (other family members, other inhabitants of Adamczycha) eventually figure it out?

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Jeeves & Wooster
Reginald Jeeves, Bertram Wooster

I fell in love with this fandom by my initially canon-blind reading of Yuletide fics from years past, and I’m thrilled to finally request it myself now that I know the canon. I have lots of shippy feelings about these characters and I love the Wodehousian humour, language, and style. I believe J and B ultimately arrive at some sort of long-term understanding, but whether it's romantic/sexual/platonic/some combination thereof? Dealer’s choice – so many options here.
Some ideas:
•    I always love a good genderbend and/or an F/F take on Jeeves and Wooster would be a fascinating thought exercise. Masculinity is such an important part of the characters – how would their circumstances change if they were a lady and her personal maid instead?
•    Crossdressing. We got it in canon, but I want more. Perhaps an expansion on the canon female writer!Jeeves and maid!Bertie (a missing scene? a repeat of the scheme?), or something new altogether (the crossdressing one can be either Jeeves, or Bertie, or both).
•    Anything involving Lady Malcolm’s Servants Ball (a historical annual event in London).
•    Bertie dressing Jeeves and/or performing other valety duties for him for plot reasons. (Or pretending to be a butler at some social gathering. Or perhaps, like in S3E3, in a play.)
•    An exploration of how the flat slowly changes from a space where a master lives and a servant accompanies him, to a space where two bachelors devoted to each other share one life.
•    Jeeves entertaining his own guests in the flat. I think he invites some people without consulting Bertie in one of the New York episodes, and I think this setup has so much potential, either as a way for Jeeves to get back at Bertie for something, or as a clear sign that the flat has become Jeeves’ as well.
•    I was fascinated by Jeeves in the New York episodes. They were much more relaxed with each other over in America, sitting side by side in a diner and playing piano etc. It would be interesting to read about what Jeeves thought about that, if he despaired about the etiquette, or maybe learned something (maybe both of them did).
•   A Claudine (from the Colette books) crossover. I think Claudine interacting with Bertie would be fun to see.
•    What unlikely set of circumstances would make Jeeves laugh? I don’t think he’s as inscrutable as he’s sometimes described as, at least not in the TV show (his eyerolls, little smiles and moues, all the head inclines etc. are quite expressive to me), but he does not laugh and is not given to anger.
•    I wish there was at least one woman who didn't want to marry Bertie just as much as Bertie doesn't want to marry her.
•    Tell me about one of their trips. South of France/Antibes? Cuba? Somewhere interesting we haven’t heard about? (Yes, please!)
•    If Jeeves was to give Bertie gifts (in a romantic way or not), how would he go about it?
•    Jeeves POV. First impressions of Bertie, how he compared to his past employers, and how and when Jeeves decided he wants to stay with Bertie for as long as possible? Jeeves’s understandings with the women he's been involved with?
•    Jeeves’s morality and personal code fascinates me. He will refuse to destroy a manuscript, then biff a policeman over the head with a branch. He will not break into a safe by entering a known combination, but he will provide Bertie with the expertise needed to break into a room. When they’re to kidnap a child, it feels like Jeeves protests not on moral grounds, but because he knows that this would quickly turn into a high-profile case. He can be so blunt, chaotic and unpredictable for all his apparent calmness and crafting elaborate schemes. Any fic exploring that would be interesting.
•    Jeeves, having decided that Bertie loves him but is either unaware of it or unwilling to act, invents a scheme to make Bertie confess. Perhaps it's byzantine, or perhaps Jeeves goes about it with the subtlety of leaving leaflets about travel destinations.
•    Jeeves is working for someone else (perhaps temporarily), and interacts with Bertie in their free time, without the influence of the employer-employee code.
•    Only one bed. There are a myriad ways of doing this even though Bertie is rich and thus always in some mansion or other, but the episode that made me think of it was the one (S2E5?) in which Bertie’s car breaks down and he stays outside an inn.
•    In a similar vein, Bertie mentioned in an off-hand joke that he thought he would have to share a bunk bed with Jeeves while travelling to New York on a ship. I can imagine some shenanigans happening that cause them to travel second or third class (they would both suffer, but maybe it would bring them closer, too).
•    Watching S4E2, where Jeeves goes to a costume party masked and in costume, made me wish he and Bertie interacted at all during this episode, or at some other time in a similar setup. Perhaps Bertie would not recognise Jeeves, or perhaps they could pretend they don’t recognise each other and interact on a more equal footing. Or we could have a dramatic reveal scene.
•    Everyone seems to think so little of Bertie, but they’re also rather indulgent with him at times. A glimpse from an  outsider’s POV would be so interesting. Other servants being weirded out by the kind of relationship Bertie and Jeeves have? Relatives choosing not to point out that no other person would allow their valet sit next to them in a chapel during a wedding?
•    There are multiple plots in the show involving blackmailing problematic chess pieces on the board, most notably in the case of Spode and Eulalie. What if, over the course of the plot, Jeeves and/or Bertie learned that someone is an invert, and it would solve their Scheme of the Day to blackmail him over it – but they decide not to do it, and their scheme falls apart. (Perhaps Jeeves knows about the invert guy from the Ganymede book, or from some grapevine of his, which would make Bertie wonder if Jeeves knows more inverts, and why.) Jeeves would fail to save the day for once. They would just quietly leave the scene, which would be anticlimatic for the main plot and the other characters, but not for Jeeves and Bertie, who learn that the other is surprisingly alright with, and even protective of queer people.