Dear Yuletide Author (2023)

[categranger]

Welcome to my Yuletide letter! I am usually a lurker, and don’t do very many exchanges, so apologies if I get something wrong. In general, anything canon-style will make me quite happy, so if none of my prompts are interesting to you, please create something you enjoy and I’m sure I will too. ♥

My AO3 name is categranger, and the canons I’m requesting are:

The Anarchy RPF | 13th Century CE Plantagenet Dynasty RPF | 14th Century CE Plantagenet Women RPF
Wars of the Roses RPF | Le Comte Ory (Met Opera 2011)

General likes:

- Canon-style tone.
- Worldbuilding.
- "What If?"/counterfactuals in historical RPF fandoms.
- Fic set during the ‘happily ever after’.
- People being head-over-heels in love with each other and all cute and affectionate.
- People looking all over town for the perfect gift for their partner. (Any occasion that would fit the canon is fine.)
- People who were used to being single having to adjust to being married/having someone else in their space all the time. (Both good adjustments and funny/awkward adjustments.)
- Queer people in love. I particularly like it when there’s no sexuality-or-gender-related angst, but just people uncomplicatedly in love with each other. (Yes, even when it’s not historically accurate/likely for there to be no angst.)
- Pining (especially mutual pining) that resolves into happiness.
- People outwitting other people.
- Honeymoons!
- Porn! I am a fan of smut.
- Happy endings.
- Yes, I accept treats, and I have checked my AO3 settings. :)

General DNWs:

- Plots that revolve entirely around homophobia & around people being intolerant of queer characters.
- Animal abuse or death.
- Child abuse or death. (For my Wars of the Roses request, references to the fate of the Princes in the Tower are fine. But no onscreen portrayal, please.)
- Detailed gore. (Battle scene = fine! Description of character with intestines spilling out = please no!)
- Physical or sexual abuse.
- Dubcon and noncon. (To the extent that dubcon exists in canon, references are fine. But please don't put it onscreen, and no non-canon dubcon please.)
- Underage sex. (Some of the historical figures I've requested were in underage marriages, and the fact that underage sex occurred off screen is not a DNW. Like, you don't have to AU the fact that Margaret Beaufort was 13 when she gave birth to her son Henry! But please don't focus on it or give detailed references to underage sex, and definitely no onscreen underage sex.)
- Unrequested ships for the characters I've requested.
- (See individual canons for a few more specific canon DNWs.)

The Anarchy RPF

Characters: Empress Matilda | Maude, Matilda of Boulogne, Henry FitzEmpress

All Characters Required? Nope! I would be happy with a story about any combination of these characters, or about any of them on their own.

Canon DNW: Geoffrey of Anjou.

Notes: This time period is just so intriguing for me! The personalities involved are huge and the clash of wills at once so personal and so public. I would love a story about any or all of my requested characters, whether a small private moment or an epic wartime drama or anything in between.

[I have read and enjoyed some fictional portrayals of this time period – most notably the Brother Cadfael series and Penman’s When Christ and His Saints Slept. I decided to request in this fandom instead of either of those because I want to leave your hands completely free for fresh characterizations. If you love either of those portrayals, though, you are welcome to take inspiration from their characterization and/or events (and to use fictional characters from the Cadfael series, if you so desire; however I am tired of Penman’s fictional Ranulf and would prefer he not appear). This is 1000% only an option, though!]

Things I Am Interested In:

For Maude: What a woman! Truly a whirlwind, and you can 100% see where her son Henry got his epicness from. I would love a story about pretty much any time in Maude’s quest for the English crown. I love the famous episode in which she escapes from Stephen in a snowstorm – if you wrote that in a TV series or movie, it would be mocked as unbelievable! I would also love a closer look at her relationship with her son Henry. (What did she think of his boyhood invasion of England, after which Stephen actually paid his armies? What were her feelings when Henry was able to do what she couldn’t, and take the English throne? Did she see herself in Henry? Was she maybe a tiny bit jealous of him, even though she was incredibly proud at the same time? What does she think when she learns of his marriage?) The only thing I wouldn’t enjoy is a focus on her relationship with her husband Geoffrey; he bothers me intensely.

For Matilda of Boulogne: Matilda is amazing. My favorite episode of hers is the incredible year of 1141. Maude captures Stephen at the Battle of Lincoln, while Matilda and Stephen’s heir is still a child – Stephen has effectively been deposed, and the civil war would seem to be over. But Matilda doesn’t give up that easily! While Maude is in London getting ready for her coronation and infuriating the city populace, Matilda rallies Stephen’s troops and leads them to London. When the people of London chase Maude out of their city (another dramatic episode!), Maude goes to besiege the besiegers of Winchester (it’s complicated). Matilda occupies London, then follows Maude to Winchester and attacks, leading to a smashing victory in which Maude’s half-brother and biggest supporter, Robert of Gloucester, is captured. This changes everything! Robert and Stephen are exchanged for each other, and the civil war is back in full swing again. (And Maude would never again be anywhere near this close to taking the throne!) A story set during this time period would be wonderful! It’s such a critical point in the Anarchy, with such intense emotional height for both women. But I am more than ready to read a story set at a different time as well!

For Henry FitzEmpress: I really enjoy the young Henry! This year, I would prefer to read a story focused on Henry and the Anarchy, if that makes sense, rather than on Henry Regnant with Eleanor at his side (although I love Eleanor!). Two of my favorite episodes with young Henry: 1) his rash boyhood invasion of England (at fourteen!), in which he raises some hell but doesn’t have the money to pay his troops, so he asks Stephen (!) to pay them and Stephen actually does in return for Henry going back to Anjou. This whole situation cracks me up. I would love to read a story about why and how this whole thing happened, and what Stephen thinks of young Henry, and what young Henry thinks of Stephen, etc etc. And 2) the Treaty of Winchester, when Henry and Stephen end the Anarchy and decide the succession. It’s just such an unusual way to end a civil war, and I’d love to read more about it! I would also love to read about Henry & Maude’s relationship, as I mentioned in her section.

“What If?”/Counterfactuals: I really love the “what if?”s of history! Some what ifs:

• What if Stephen didn’t rebel, and instead supported Maude becoming Queen? (A fake monk’s chronicle about her reign would be amazing! Or maybe a fake Wikipedia or scholarly article? Or a recap of a fake TV show about her reign? She would’ve been the first Queen Regnant, so we would probably care a lot about her, especially given her vibrant personality!)
• What if Stephen’s son, William – who lost his claim to the English crown by the Treaty of Winchester – ended up falling in love with the new King? (Perfectly fine with a polyamorous triad with Eleanor if that interests you!)
• Or what if this was a universe where male marriage was fine, and Stephen, Matilda, and Maude explicitly negotiated their sons’ marriage as part of the Treaty of Winchester itself?

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13th Century CE Plantagenet Dynasty RPF

Characters: Edward II of England, Piers Gaveston, Joan of Acre

All Characters Required? No. A story with just Edward & Piers is fine, or a story with just Edward & Joan, or a story with all three.

Canon DNW: Please no references or portrayal of Edward or Piers’s deaths (or of Edward mourning Piers), or detailed scenes with Edward’s father fighting with him over his relationship with Piers. (Acknowledging that Edward’s father is furious about the relationship? Fine. Detailed scene of the fight where Edward’s father tore out his hair and probably called them all manner of slurs? Please no!)

Short History Recap: Joan of Acre (sometimes called Joanna) -- the woman who was married off to help her father control a powerful Marcher lord, who was as full of spirit and personality and determination as her famous sire. Who, when her first husband died, secretly married one of his squires she had fallen in love with, and faced down her famously volatile father to win her new husband’s life and her own happiness. Who supported her brother Edward and offered to host him when he was having fights with their father. Who may have started off as a young pawn, married off against her will to a man with children older than herself, but seized control of her own destiny and won her freedom and power. (A book I read recently that was really good about Joan -- Daughters of Chivalry, by Kelcey Wilson-Lee, about Edward I’s daughters.)

Edward – the last son of his parents, who were famously in love and traveled all around Europe together on various wars and campaigns, steadily having and leaving children along the way. Would have been happier as a rich younger son, but all his older brothers died and he was left (much to his father’s rage) as the heir. Fell in love with his friend Piers, and fought round after round of battles over him with his father. First thing he did when his father died was recall Piers from exile; named him Earl of Cornwall (a title that had been intended for one of Edward's younger brothers), gave him a royal bride, and left him Regent of the kingdom when he had to travel abroad. In fact, the seeds of future rebellion were planted when he paid more attention to Piers at his wedding than to his bride, a French princess. Eventually both Edward and Piers would both be killed by angry lords (and that same French princess).

Things I Am Interested In:

Edward and Joan’s relationship! They weren’t very close in age but Joan still seems to have been protective about him and outright took his side when he and his father were fighting. I would love a story where she was supportive of his relationship with Piers, not just of him personally. She knew firsthand what it was like to be forced into a marriage she didn’t want, and how important choosing forbidden love was, even if it risked everything.

Edward and Piers’s relationship. Any happy story with the two of them happy would be wonderful. Obviously there were angsty times, and I don’t mind bittersweet stories, but I long to read about some times where they were happy. Whether that’s in the early days of their relationship, before most people realized they were together, or in the early days of Edward’s kingship, when they can finally be together and the stormclouds haven’t yet broke, I’d love any story about them!

“What if?”s/counterfactuals! I love what if stories.

• What if Joan didn’t die before her father, and was around to help give advice to Edward and Piers as they tried to rule the kingdom without the barons rebelling?
• What if Joan was John (or if one of Edward’s older brothers had lived), and Edward was a younger son who could fall in love and live happily with lower stakes than the heir to the throne?
• What if the crown was elective and women rulers, while rare, were judged on their aptitude not their gender, and Joan became Queen and Edward was able to be her right-hand man and not the monarch?
• What if gay people were accepted and gay marriage was allowed, and the main problem wasn’t that Edward and Piers were in love, but that it was the heir to the throne who wanted to make a marriage that couldn‘t have children, so that’s why Edward I wouldn’t allow it? (And was eventually talked around once he and his second wife had a couple of sons to be Edward’s heirs.)
• What if Edward was a great military commander like his father and his son, and his father made his peace with Edward’s relationship with Piers because of how good he was at war? (Kind of dark!)
• What if Isabella had become good friends with Piers instead of rivals, and she helped Edward and Piers placate the barons instead of deposing and murdering her husband?
• What if Isabella (or a Joan who didn’t die), realizing that the barons were implacable, helped Edward and Piers fake their own deaths and run off to a happy retirement together somewhere on the Continent or on a secluded estate?

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14th Century CE Plantagenet Women RPF

Characters: Katherine Swynford, Blanche of Lancaster

All Characters Required? No. Katherine is a must, but Blanche can be left out if you just want to write about Katherine.

Short History Recap: Blanche of Lancaster and Katherine de Roet – one a great heiress, the other the daughter of a mere knight. Raised together at the royal court of Edward III and his wife Philippa, they became friends and Katherine went into Blanche’s service to be a companion and help care for her children after Blanche married one of the royal princes, John of Gaunt. They raised their children together while their husbands were often off fighting wars, and stayed friends until Blanche’s untimely death nine years after her marriage. After the death of her own husband, Katherine fell in love with Blanche’s widower, and her children, his children, and their children grew up together. Eventually Katherine & John married, shocking the court, and their assorted children would be central to the story of the English monarchy and the Wars of the Roses. (This is very much the tl;dr version of their story. For a slightly longer recap that I cut, see my background history post.)

Things I Am Interested In:

Blanche and Katherine’s relationship! Birthdates are often somewhat difficult to figure out in this time period – Blanche was probably eight years older than Katherine, but you could make them almost the same age and I’d buy it. I would love a story about their relationship, whether you made that a platonic sisterly friendship, or saw a romance blossoming between them during the times their husbands were off at war. (Please no underage romance – I know this time period often has noble/royal girls married off at 12 or 13, but please no romance before age 17.)

How do Katherine and John first get together? John and Blanche, who were married at 19 and 17 and had grown up together at court, seem to have been a genuine love match, and he grieved her death so deeply that Chaucer wrote a whole epic poem about it and their joint tomb had their effigies holding hands for eternity. Katherine, meanwhile, was close friends with Blanche and must have grieved her death immensely as well. Do they fall in love coming out of their shared grief? Does John fall in love with her a couple of years later watching the way she loves and cares for his and Blanche’s little children?

The large blended family of the Lancaster, Swynford, and Beaufort children stayed close over the years. All of them supported Henry Bolingbroke (John & Blanche’s son) when he invaded England and deposed Richard II after John’s death. What do they think of their mother/stepmother? We know Henry, who was only 1 when Blanche died, called Katherine the “Mother of the King” and made sure she was comfortable and wealthy for the rest of her life. What’s the outside-POV from their children on Blanche, Katherine, and John?

And then there’s the “what if?”/counterfactual ideas! I love imagining scenarios where Things Went Differently.

• What if Blanche didn’t die, and the three of them became a happy polyamorous trio?
• What if, instead of Blanche, John is the one who dies early, off in some battle, and Blanche and Katherine fall in love over the years they are widows raising their children together? How do they work together to keep Blanche from having to remarry? (If it helps, Edward III was a bit of an old softy when it came to his kids and let two of them contract love marriages. If he saw Blanche as a surrogate kid/daughter-in-law, maybe he would let her stay unmarried and focus on raising baby Henry and his sisters.)
• What if Richard II had died young, and Lionel of Clarence’s daughter Philippa had died/not existed (or if John of Gaunt was the 2nd son instead of the 3rd), and John of Gaunt became king? How much more of a scandal would him marrying Katherine have been if she had become Queen?

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Wars of the Roses RPF

Characters: Elizabeth of York

All Characters Required? Only one character, so yes. :)

Canon DNWs: 1) The character Edmund Tudor. 2) The ship Richard III/Elizabeth of York.

Notes: I am truly neutral on Richard III – I’ve read beautiful Ricardian work (The Sunne in Splendour!!), and I’d buy him as a hero if you’re a Ricardian, but I’d also be fine with an anti-Ricardian fic where he was a dastardly villain. (In either case, however, note my DNW about the Richard/Elizabeth ship.)

Short History Recap: In 1482, Elizabeth of York was a 16-year-old princess, the eldest child in a large and loving family, engaged to the Dauphin since her childhood and destined to be the Queen of France. In 1483, her father unexpectedly died, shortly after the French King had broken Elizabeth & the Dauphin's engagement. Within three years, Elizabeth lost both of her brothers, two uncles, and an aunt, and married an invading conqueror to save the kingdom from civil war. She was pregnant with the heir to the throne before her wedding, and her marriage developed into a love match. From the foremost Yorkist princess (and the future Queen of France), she became instead the first Tudor Queen. (This is the tl;dr version of the story. For a slightly longer recap that I cut, see my background history post.)

Things I Would Love to See: I would love pretty much any story you wanted to write about Elizabeth. (Excepting Elizabeth/Richard – I ship Richard/Anne forever.) I do ship Elizabeth/Henry, but I don’t need their relationship to be 100% fluffy and straightforward, particularly at first! Angst and drama are perfectly okay. (No consent issues though, please.) I like how Thomas Penn put it in his Henry VII biography Winter King (2012), writing about Elizabeth’s death, that “[though] founded on pragmatism, Henry and Elizabeth’s marriage had nevertheless blossomed throughout the uncertainty and upheaval of the previous eighteen years. This was a marriage of ‘faithful love’, of mutual attraction, affection and respect, from which the king seems to have drawn great strength.” Henry was absolutely devastated and brokenhearted by Elizabeth’s death in childbirth, which took everyone a bit by surprise as he was certainly not known for his emotions.

Some specific prompts:

• What was Elizabeth’s family life as a teenager, and how did it compare with the family she built with Henry? We know that Christmases were especially celebrated in the Tudor court, and were a high-merriment family time. Did Elizabeth get that from her own childhood? Henry had never had a close family life like that. What did he like best about it?
• What did Elizabeth think when her mother and Margaret Beaufort negotiated her marriage with Henry Tudor? Was she in favor of the plan? What did she think about staying in England and becoming its Queen? (After having been engaged to the Dauphin of France for most of her life, and then Richard trying to marry her off to the heir of Portugal.) Did she see herself as inheriting England from her father and brother, in a way?
• How did she grieve her father and brothers’ deaths? Did she believe that her brothers were dead? Did she believe that maybe one of her brothers had escaped, and was she constantly looking over her shoulder, thinking that he might show up safe after all? How did she feel about that, especially after she was Queen and had children who might be threatened by an uncle’s reappearance?
• How did Elizabeth and Henry fall in love? Was it before or after they married? What was the first time she realized that, against all odds, she had found love in an arranged, pragmatic marriage with a man everyone thought was cold and pragmatic himself?
• How does Elizabeth tell Henry that she’s pregnant? What does it mean to both of them? Do they see the baby as the end of the Wars of the Roses, and swear a vow to make it so? (I love that they went totally off script on the name and chose Arthur – if that’s not symbolic, I don’t know what is.) Do they keep it a secret from everyone, or do people know at the wedding that she’s already (newly) pregnant? Or do they not know until after the wedding, and it’s a honeymoon announcement from Elizabeth to Henry?
• How does Elizabeth and Henry’s love grow over the years? What are some milestones along the way? Or quiet/intimate moments of rest?
• Henry spent a lot of his life in exile abroad. How does Elizabeth teach him more about the country he has come to rule?
• And then the “what if?”/counterfactual ideas!

• What if Edward IV did NOT die prematurely, but lived to a ripe old age - what would Elizabeth’s life have been like then? (Might Edward IV have arranged her marriage with Henry anyway, after the French match fell through, in order to bring the last Lancastrian claimant into his family?)
• What if Richard III stayed the beloved uncle and was able to come to an agreement with the Woodville faction to be Edward V’s regent, and Edward V lived to a ripe old age – what would Elizabeth’s life have looked like then, with the uneasy posturing between factions at court? (Maybe she would have married her cousin Edward, Richard’s son?)
• What if Henry VII was assassinated shortly after their marriage, and Elizabeth became the regent for a baby Arthur and was “ruling Queen in all but name”?
• What if Elizabeth hadn’t died when she did, and instead was around to be a moderating influence on Henry VIII?

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Le Comte Ory (Met Opera 2011)

Characters: Adèle, Isolier, Comte Ory

All Characters Required? Adèle and Isolier, please. The Comte can come or not, depending on your story.

Production(s): This production is available on Met Player (with a free 7-day trial) and on DVD. The central trio is Damrau/DiDonato/Flórez, and all three have ridiculous levels of chemistry with each other. Which is great because this is the production that takes the farce in the last act – with Isolier pretending to be Adèle and tricking the Comte into feeling up/trying to seduce his own male page – to another level. Instead it becomes a delightful, consensual threesome in which the Comte realises halfway through what’s going on and doesn’t give a fig. Cue threesome romp in bed!

Notes: Beyond the threesome, I just really love this production in general. Flórez is a hoot in disguise (here a pontificating hermit and a surprisingly handsy nun). DiDonato is a delight as Isolier, the earnest young page who lays honest siege to his lady love’s heart (and wins her hand!) while conspiring with her to frustrate the Comte’s amatory intentions (and then choosing with her to indulge those intentions for a little while). And Damrau, one of my favourite sopranos, is a sweet, fluffy, but shrewd young Countess who totally rumbles “Sister Colette” and spends the rest of the opera trolling him.

Things I would love to see! The threesome, obviously. As explicit and hot or as bubbly and light-hearted as you like. (Or both! Both is good.) There’s an additional outtake clip on Youtube (from the dress rehearsal) that takes the explicit level even higher than in the actual show – the Comte and Isolier stick their heads up Adèle’s skirts – and I love that. I’d also love to see if the Comte came back later (perhaps for their wedding? Or a year or so down the line?) and all three of them fell back into bed together again.

I’d also enjoy Adèle/Isolier fic, with or without the platonic(ish) presence of the Comte. (Maybe he comes back a year later and there is no threesome but he flirts roguishly with both of them? Maybe he tries to come back in a new disguise to troll them but they see through it immediately – or do they?) Damrau and DiDonato have delicious chemistry and I would definitely love to read more about their Adèle and Isolier falling in love. Either of their POVs during an opera scene would be lovely, or after the opera when Isolier meets Adèle’s brother and the engagement goes forward. What do they tell Adèle’s brother about how they met/fell in love? Somehow I doubt they’d ever tell him about the threesome, lol, although they might tell him some abridged version of how Isolier saved Adèle from the aspirations of the libertine Comte.

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Thank you!! If you have any questions, send them my way through the mods and I would be happy to answer them. :) [If you aren't assigned to me and you just want to chat about one of the fandoms we share, I'm always happy to make a new fandom friend, so feel free to comment below.]