Dear Yuletide Writer 2021

[gingertime]

We made it! It's Yuletide again!

 

General likes: comedy, metafiction, bodyswapping/sharing, time travel/loops, snark & banter, pastiche, historical/scientific research, framing stories/narrative layers, dreams-as-plot-device, casefic/mysteries, dramatic irony, clever AUs, mind control & possession, expanded worldbuilding, outsider POV, multimedia/experimental formats, competence porn, identity hijinks, pining, creative crossovers & fusions.

 

DNW: noncanonical character death, daddy kink, noncon, A/B/O, soulmate/soulmark AUs, unrequested gender/sexuality headcanons, scat/watersports, formalized BDSM

 

I’m very down for smut but would prefer no straight-up PWPs.

 

To get more of a sense of what I dig, feel free to check out my works & bookmarks on my AO3!

 

 

 

 

Blackadder

 

Edmund Blackadder, Kevin Darling, George Colthurst St. Barleigh, Baldrick

 

 

This show was an unexpected obsession for me this year! Also unexpected was how sexy I ended up finding Blackadder himself by the end.

 

I’m really fond of the ensemble in general and all the ways they bounce off each other and make each others’ lives worse. So any sort of slice-of-life adventure during the Goes Forth era would be an absolute delight. George and Baldrick is a team-up I would enjoy seeing explored—they’re both idiots, but in completely different ways. I've always wondered if George was aware of his royal ancestry (figuring he's a direct descendent of one of the Regent's many bastard children, if you were to draw on real history a bit) — what would happen if he found out? Or, even better, what if Blackadder found out, and was determined to keep it from him? 

 

I very much enjoy Blackadder/Darling in the context of Goes Forth, so would love to receive that, but would equally like to see them flirt or get together in a later-20th century Blackadder “era” — your call as to the decade, but the Cold War/a spy theme would be especially incredible.

 

You would win my undying affection if you did Blackadder On Ice e.g. as polar explorers haplessly searching for the lost Franklin expedition in the 1850s and getting lost themselves (typical).

 

Unfortunately I couldn’t fit Worldbuilding into my nominations, but if you would like to explore the workings of the reincarnation mechanism (or spatio-genetic multiplicity, as the Doctor would have it) and/or any kind of larger spiritual meaning to Blackadder’s progression through the ages, I would be thrilled. Who was the first Neolithic Blackadder, and for what sin did he doom his descendants to generations of stupidity? Or even Blackadder In Space! 

 

 

 

Polar Explorer RPF

 

Joseph Dalton Hooker

 

I read Michael Palin’s wonderful book Erebus at the beginning of my polar obsession and came out of it absolutely loving young Mr. Hooker. The anecdotes of his naturalizing expeditions, desk in Ross’s cabin, misadventures falling out of the boat (Maturin style!), and friendship with Lady Jane all brought me great joy. So really, any kind of story involving him would make me happy!

 

Feel free to take it in a sci-fi/horror/fantasy direction, with Hooker making some kind of unexpected discovery or having a strange encounter on the ice. 

 

And of course I would love to see any of the other members of the expedition appearing (Crozier, Ross, McCormick, Bird, Jopson) or even Sir John, Lady Jane and Sophia in Hobart. I’m a big Rossier shipper even speaking purely historically (those letters!) so maybe something about Hooker realizing his two captains are perhaps a bit more intimate than is usual…

 

 

Aubrey-Maturin Series

 

Jack Aubrey, Stephen Maturin, DIana Villiers, Sophie Williams

 

I adore the land-based sequences of the Aubreyad where Jack is at loose ends without a ship. The Austenesque social comedy, the fish-out-of-water aspect, and of course meanwhile Stephen is off either naturalizing or spying or both.

 

I would love some kind of shore sequence that involves both duos, perhaps a role reversal where the girls are put in the spotlight for once and have to get Jack and/or Stephen out of some kind of trouble. Maybe something set at an Admiralty ball or royal levee, for that added bit of glamor.

 

Epistolary would also be absolutely lovely, especially any kind of outsider POV to the Stephen + Jack relationship. Gen or shippy is fine!

 

 

 

Withnail & I

 

Withnail, Peter Marwood

 

Any sort of pre- or post-canon story for these two would be a beautiful thing. For pre-canon: what was their first meeting? How did they come to move in together? What did Marwood’s friends (if he had any) think of his budding relationship with Withnail?

 

I’ve always thought of Withnail & I and Oh Hello as two sides of the same coin, because I’m insane, so for post-canon I would be absolutely thrilled to see them in the modern day as crusty old men putting on a West End show, with a slow reveal of the backstory over time.  Or some kind of nonlinear thing flashing back and forth between the immediate aftermath of their split up at the end of the movie, and a long-delayed reunion circa the 2010s.

 

Smut would be great but I’m just as equally as interested, if not moreso, in them as codependent, smarm-y platonic soulmates.

 

 

 

Taskmaster New Zealand RPF

 

Laura Daniel, Paul Williams

 

She stole his girlfriend! She took him on a lovely a date! She is irrepressibly chaotic and bubbly and witty and he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself about it! For this one I would love smut (an exception to my PWP DNW) or at the very least something super flirty.

 

(I will ask that if you write this for me you please archive lock it <3)