Yuletide 2025
Oct. 16th, 2025 09:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pure_anonHello to whoever gets me! I love doing Yuletide every year, and I hope my prompts spark some inspiration in you! I have fandom promo posts linked for my rarest fandoms, so I hope those are helpful as well!
Likes: I love stories with
DNWs: Voluntary, self-inflicted amputation, miscarriages, waterplay, anal sex, character bashing, unrequested identity headcanons, and modern aus.
Smut likes:
Fandom: A New Leaf (1971)
Characters Requested: Henrietta Lowell, Henry Graham
Fandom Promo Post: https://yuletide.dreamwidth.org/349432.html?thread=5554424#cmt5554424
Prompts: What really heightens this film for me is the relationship between Henry and Henrietta. There's something so lovely in how Henry starts out as a playboy bum, no motivations other than wealth and driving his fast car with carbon on the valves. And yet, as he cares for Henrietta, he becomes a much better person. He finds new things in life to care about, loath as he is to admit it. And Henrietta is lovely--not a manic pixie dream girl at all, but a real person who is exceedingly clumsy and in love with her special interests. She's naive, yes, but she's not stupid. I think it's interesting how she doesn't push for Henry to change, but he changes because of her very impact. The ending of this film makes me smile every time.
I really want something focused around Henry and Henrietta's marriage post-canon. I want to see them working at the university together! I'd love to see Henry as a professor--maybe even an outsider view of what their students think of their marriage. Or just domestic life! Anything with them honestly. I adore them, and I want more! I'd also love Henrietta POV of when she realizes that Henry planned to kill her, and why she does what she does. Her POV during early canon could be interesting too! Basically, anything involving them I'd be super happy with.
I'm also super obsessed with how Henry continually caretakes her appearance, cutting off tags, brushing off lint, sorting out which way a garment is going. I think it's both sweet and also makes me go!!! I'd love to see that explored in a smut context, especially with lingerie. I can really see Henrietta twisting up her lingerie (perhaps on purpose) and Henry helping her fix it.I may be the first person to ever want smut for this movie, but I'm valid.
Fandom: The Warrender Saga - Mary Burchell
Characters Requested: Any (Gail Rostall, Oliver Bannister, Kate Grayson | Katherine Gray, Carlo Etlinger)
Fandom Promo Post: https://yuletide.dreamwidth.org/349432.html?thread=5554168#cmt5554168
Prompts: I'd really love to see endgame Gail/Oliver or Kate/Carlo!!
I think Gail and Oliver have such a connection, and I adore their banter; I'd really love to see them work together more? They're almost dating at the start of the story, when he brings her down to meet his family -- who happen to be much more involved in the opera world than he is. From then on, Gail becomes entangled with the problems of the Bannisters, struggling to balance her own artistic interests with what is ethical. Her and Oliver sort of fade out romantically as she begins to fall for his older brother -- and I do like his older brother, but Oliver is just so interesting, and him and Gail have such great chemistry! Later in the book, she ends up collaborating with him on a musical, and though she's dismissive of musicals (the flaw in Burchell's work for me T_T), they end up creating art together. I just think she has more chemistry with him than with his brother, and I'd love to see them take the musical theater world by storm together! I'd love to see Gail make the switch to musical theater -- musical theater is my first love, and I think she could really shine there, especially in the kinder-to-lower-female-voices-era of the 1960s and 1970s. I'd love to see Oliver perhaps work on a book musical too, not just a revue? I can see him getting into more experimental musicals as well. He could be a voice in British musical theater!
Suddenly they were all three talking together and, with Oliver playing on the piano and Tom striking out words and substituting others on his battered piece of paper, they then and there worked out the song which was to capture all London in less than a year’s time.
It was late when Oliver took her home, and they walked hand in hand through the cool autumn night, while the stars seemed to lean out of heaven. And inevitably he kissed her goodnight when he left her.
They're just darling, and I'd love to see them interact more. I'd even be down for him crashing her wedding--that could be fun!
For Kate/Carlo, I'm very interested in her actually going on that tour with him!!! I really do think both of them could grow so much; both as artists and human beings. Carlo and Kate discover that they have a connection musically--a certain magnetism together that is very compelling. And I think it's a darn shame she gives that up to work doggedly with the main love interest, when she could have worked hard with Carlo, building her own career well with good experience, and he too would have benefited massively from consistent work. They're just so interesting together. In another book by Burchell, he would very much have been the main love interest! Not this one, sadly.
They're both so young and passionate, but Kate is willing to work for her goals, and I think she could teach Carlo to be industrious too. The strange, sexual tension between them is so intriguing, and rare for Burchell -- if you want to explore that as well, I shall not mind :P. I also think something even just post-canon could be interesting -- if you have Kate realize what an ass Van is, I will be very happy. XD
Fandom Specific DNWs: I know Cat-Eye Willie has devil imagery in the original song, but I'd prefer if you lean more on the fey side than the demonic/devil side.
Fandom: Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett
Characters Requested: Effie Perine, Sam Spade (Maltese Falcon)
Prompts: So I was completely upended by Effie/Sam, to the point that I changed out one of the fandoms I was nominating at the very last second, because they got me so bad. No one told me Effie/Sam was the real tragic love story in this novel, not Brigid/Sam. They're so weird about each other. He's easy and genuine with her in a way he is with no other woman, and he's actually affectionate with her in a way he is with no one else in the story. He's clearly false to and lying to every other woman in this story--but not her. She pushes him to do good things despite himself. I love how witty and charming and head over heels for her she is, even though he knows he's no damned good (even if she doesn't realize quite how bad he is.) Their banter is delightful, and they just match each other's level.
And I'm in love with the fact that after he betrays Brigid and turns her in, when he goes to Effie for comfort, she shrinks from him. And it's the only thing about the whole damned business that actually seems to upset him. He never thought Effie would turn from him.
Fandom: The Secret Garden - Simon/Norman
Characters Requested: Dr. Neville Craven (Secret Garden - Norman/Simon)
Fandom Promo Post: https://yuletide.dreamwidth.org/349432.html?thread=5556216#cmt5556216
Prompts: Neville Craven is one of my favorite characters in any media. I desperately want more fic exploring him. He's such an absolutely fascinating character to me. Second son who loves his brother with his whole heart, who has dedicated his life to making sure his brother's son lives--and yet is hiding his own unrequited love for his brother's dead wife, as well as his own hurt and pain at her loss. A man who would never consider stealing the manor and grounds from his brother, but who yet still wishes his brother would give them to him, for he is the one who has actually been taking care of them. A man who would never have taken action to steal his brother's wife, but still wished that she would one day turn and see him standing there. A man who does want the best for his nephew, has honestly been doing his best to make him well, but is also a Victwardian doctor, and so he has fundamentally messed Colin up in many ways. The caretaker who has no one taking care of him. A man who is outwardly very selfless but selfish and needing inside. The way he beefs with Mary is also so funny and fascinating (really nearly threw hands with a 13 year old energy.) He's the Gothic Uncle's Brother trying to prevent Mary from becoming a Gothic Heroine and Colin from becoming a Gothic Character. I adore him.
I would love to see him interact with any of the other characters in the tagset--Archie, Lily, or Mary.
For Neville & Archie prompts, I'm obsessed with their messed up caretaker/mentally ill person relationship. They both love each other so so much, and they've hurt each other so so much because they refuse to communicate properly. I would love something exploring Neville's both mingled resentment and deep love for his brother. He wants the opportunities he never got to have, but he also willingly gave up his whole life for his brother. There is deep, deep love there. I'd love something exploring the hurt he feels that his brother doesn't appreciate how much he does taking care of the estate/manor and Archie's child. I'd love to see them growing closer and finally communicating post-canon. I'd love to see something exploring how Neville grew up always being his caretaker. They fascinate me!
In my opinion, Lily's Eyes is not quite enough to explain why Neville is still pining for his brother's wife ten years after his death. I'd love to know more about what about her got him so bad! Why did he fall in love with her? What was their relationship like? Was she fond of him at all, or was she only kind to him for Archie's sake? I have a firm headcanon that he had to help her during her labor until Colin arrived, and I think he must blame himself in part for her death. He is also in the manor far more than Archie, so he must see her ghost more often than Archie does. How much time does he spend pretending he doesn't see her?
And his relationship with Mary is my favorite in the show. They're so very alike in so many ways--both angry, snarky rude people who just want a place of their own. If Colin resembles Archie, Mary resembles Neville. Mary gets her bit of earth--Neville doesn't. When he's in her presence, he descends to her level, and she gets in some very good palpable hits on him. The scene where he asks if she wants Colin to die is so powerful! She breaks through his grew-up-too-fast wall to reach to the neglected child underneath. I really want to see them interacting post-canon--can they ease their rocky start?
I would also be extremely interested in them having a romantic relationship once Mary is older. I'm extremely into substitution issues in ships, and Mary growing up to look like Lily, having her eyes, but her own very Marylike stubbornness and rudeness, her bite and determination. She looks like her, but she's not her, and it's very confusing for Neville's poor heart. I could see them really interacting in fascinating ways romantically--it would be messy but so terribly intriguing. He could mention how Colin would be a suitable suitor, and she could sniff and say he doesn't understand anything--and he doesn't.
And as for Neville on his own prompts, him + the estate musings would be very enjoyable for me. He truly loves the estate; he is the person who takes care of it while its master is off traveling the world. He is the one hampered in its upkeep because its master will not sign papers. And for much of the time, it's just him, the servants, Colin, and the house. That's a rather lonely life.
I'm also always down for unsatisfying masturbation. I can see him waking up in the middle of the night, wanting and panting, and then Colin starts screaming, and he has to get up and go, because he always puts other people's needs before his (or thinks he does.) I would love to see him being despairingly horny over Lily, or in the future, fumbling for intimacy with Mary.
Fandom Specific DNWs: Please no romantic Mary/Neville when she is still a child.
Fandom: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith
Characters Requested: Ben Blake (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn), Francie Nolan
Prompts: I know that in real life, Betty Smith and her Ben did not make it. But I also know Betty Smith wrote one of the most wish-fulfillment novels I've ever read, where an 18 year old and a 20 year old marry in college, get pregnant right off, and they still get their happy ending. So, clearly I'm not the first to wish things could work out for Francie and Ben.
I like Ben, and I refuse to believe Francie will be hung up on Lee forever to the point that she will never find romantic satisfaction with him. Ben is young, and pompous, and very sure of himself, but he also helped her so much with her homework, he took her on a date to a theater, and he didn't want to take advantage of her even though he knew his own mind. It's implied he didn't reach out to her because he was struggling with his own feelings, and he comes back to summer school to be with Francie again! He asks for reassurance that she's glad he came too. Ben has very big political goals; a poor Irish-Austrian Catholic teenager from Brooklyn isn't a benefit to him. But, he wants to marry her anyway. That's something.
Francie continually thinks and talks about wanting to be needed; Ben is very sure-footed. So, clearly, the natural thing is to make him slip. He needs to be put into a position where he needs Francie, and I don't think it would be OOC with the information we have on him to make it happen.
Something I've been musing upon is Francie's urge to cut her hair, and her mother's consistent disapproval, because hair is a woman's crowning beauty. I could see her mentioning casually to Ben that she plans to cut her hair once she gets back from Christmas break, and he is visibly taken aback. I could see him being very into her hair, and I could see him asking her not to cut it (a la A Countess Below Stairs, even). I think Francie would be very into that--possessiveness over your personal appearance seems like something that would appeal to Rommely women. XD
Other ideas are that Ben loses a job opportunity, or his mother (that he's mentioned as being very close to) is ill or dies. Or they do get married, and it's all perfectly companionable for years, but she still doesn't love him--and then the Stock Market crash happens, and then she realizes she does love him. Or, somehow he finds out about Lee? He's in Reserve Officers' Training Corps by the end of the novel, so maybe they cross paths, and he overhears Lee talking with his buddies about a girl who reminds him of Francie. Maybe that makes it click why they don't seem to be as close as they could like.
Ben is a man who plunges headlong into everything but relationships; I want to see him break in that regard. I want Francie to have a romantic relationship where she does feel needed; I don't want her to spend her entire life hung up on a piece of trash. Ben and Francie are both so smart and they get along well, and I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be able to be very happy together.
Likes: I love stories with
- angst
- yearning
- unrequited pining
- earned happy ending
- unhealthy relationships (with or without growing into healthy ones)
- dubious consent
- power imbalances
- selfish and determined female characters
- characters who are too selfless for their own well-being
- enemies to lovers
- character studies
- 5 + 1
- angsty smut along the lines of that one tumblr post that goes, “the plot of this smut fic is that character a believes himself abandoned by God."
- fairy tale retellings
- animal metaphors
- soulmate aus
- timeloop aus
- historical accuracy
- loss of innocence
- corruption
- loyalty
- tender face touches
- hand kisses
- arranged marriage
- marriage of convenience
- unreliable narrators
- people having to make hard choices
- disability
- and any relationship that could be categorized as "fucked up tender."
DNWs: Voluntary, self-inflicted amputation, miscarriages, waterplay, anal sex, character bashing, unrequested identity headcanons, and modern aus.
Smut likes:
- Biting
- Breeding kink
- Enjoying something despite yourself
- Overstimulation
- Degradation
- Body worship
- Unsafe sex
- Violent sex
- Forced orgasm
- Edging
- Erectile dysfunction
- Premature orgasm
- Just The Tip that becomes Not Just The Tip
- Coming in pants
- Teasing
- Dom/sub
- Hair pulling
- Power play
- Orgasm denial
Fandom: A New Leaf (1971)
Characters Requested: Henrietta Lowell, Henry Graham
Fandom Promo Post: https://yuletide.dreamwidth.org/349432.html?thread=5554424#cmt5554424
Prompts: What really heightens this film for me is the relationship between Henry and Henrietta. There's something so lovely in how Henry starts out as a playboy bum, no motivations other than wealth and driving his fast car with carbon on the valves. And yet, as he cares for Henrietta, he becomes a much better person. He finds new things in life to care about, loath as he is to admit it. And Henrietta is lovely--not a manic pixie dream girl at all, but a real person who is exceedingly clumsy and in love with her special interests. She's naive, yes, but she's not stupid. I think it's interesting how she doesn't push for Henry to change, but he changes because of her very impact. The ending of this film makes me smile every time.
I really want something focused around Henry and Henrietta's marriage post-canon. I want to see them working at the university together! I'd love to see Henry as a professor--maybe even an outsider view of what their students think of their marriage. Or just domestic life! Anything with them honestly. I adore them, and I want more! I'd also love Henrietta POV of when she realizes that Henry planned to kill her, and why she does what she does. Her POV during early canon could be interesting too! Basically, anything involving them I'd be super happy with.
I'm also super obsessed with how Henry continually caretakes her appearance, cutting off tags, brushing off lint, sorting out which way a garment is going. I think it's both sweet and also makes me go!!! I'd love to see that explored in a smut context, especially with lingerie. I can really see Henrietta twisting up her lingerie (perhaps on purpose) and Henry helping her fix it.I may be the first person to ever want smut for this movie, but I'm valid.
Fandom: The Warrender Saga - Mary Burchell
Characters Requested: Any (Gail Rostall, Oliver Bannister, Kate Grayson | Katherine Gray, Carlo Etlinger)
Fandom Promo Post: https://yuletide.dreamwidth.org/349432.html?thread=5554168#cmt5554168
Prompts: I'd really love to see endgame Gail/Oliver or Kate/Carlo!!
I think Gail and Oliver have such a connection, and I adore their banter; I'd really love to see them work together more? They're almost dating at the start of the story, when he brings her down to meet his family -- who happen to be much more involved in the opera world than he is. From then on, Gail becomes entangled with the problems of the Bannisters, struggling to balance her own artistic interests with what is ethical. Her and Oliver sort of fade out romantically as she begins to fall for his older brother -- and I do like his older brother, but Oliver is just so interesting, and him and Gail have such great chemistry! Later in the book, she ends up collaborating with him on a musical, and though she's dismissive of musicals (the flaw in Burchell's work for me T_T), they end up creating art together. I just think she has more chemistry with him than with his brother, and I'd love to see them take the musical theater world by storm together! I'd love to see Gail make the switch to musical theater -- musical theater is my first love, and I think she could really shine there, especially in the kinder-to-lower-female-voices-era of the 1960s and 1970s. I'd love to see Oliver perhaps work on a book musical too, not just a revue? I can see him getting into more experimental musicals as well. He could be a voice in British musical theater!
Suddenly they were all three talking together and, with Oliver playing on the piano and Tom striking out words and substituting others on his battered piece of paper, they then and there worked out the song which was to capture all London in less than a year’s time.
It was late when Oliver took her home, and they walked hand in hand through the cool autumn night, while the stars seemed to lean out of heaven. And inevitably he kissed her goodnight when he left her.
They're just darling, and I'd love to see them interact more. I'd even be down for him crashing her wedding--that could be fun!
For Kate/Carlo, I'm very interested in her actually going on that tour with him!!! I really do think both of them could grow so much; both as artists and human beings. Carlo and Kate discover that they have a connection musically--a certain magnetism together that is very compelling. And I think it's a darn shame she gives that up to work doggedly with the main love interest, when she could have worked hard with Carlo, building her own career well with good experience, and he too would have benefited massively from consistent work. They're just so interesting together. In another book by Burchell, he would very much have been the main love interest! Not this one, sadly.
They're both so young and passionate, but Kate is willing to work for her goals, and I think she could teach Carlo to be industrious too. The strange, sexual tension between them is so intriguing, and rare for Burchell -- if you want to explore that as well, I shall not mind :P. I also think something even just post-canon could be interesting -- if you have Kate realize what an ass Van is, I will be very happy. XD
He laughed and, getting up from his chair, came to stand beside her at the piano. For her part, Kate was suddenly strangely excited and very faintly scared, though she was not sure why. She picked out a note or two on the piano and said, ‘I’m just trying to remember how it goes——’ ‘Take it from here.’ He leaned across her so that he was unexpectedly close, and sketched a phrase or two. ‘Yes, I’ve got it!’ She began to play, and all at once that warm, seductive baritone voice was addressing her personally in a melody which had captured the world long before she was born. Good musical discipline made her join in accurately at the right point. But then something she had never before experienced warmed and coloured her voice with a sort of sensuous excitement that was totally alien to Kate Grayson, and entirely in keeping with the infatuated Nedda. She had to respond, she had to let Silvio know that she loved him and, casting all her humdrum life aside, would go with him. The beautifully blended voices soared to a triumphant peak and came to a stop. And at that point Carlo picked her right up in his arms and kissed her several times—laughing, breathless and in some curious way exultant. ‘You see?’ he said, still holding her close against him. ‘That’s how it should be done! You’re learning, my little Kate—you’re learning!’ And, as she disentangled herself from his embrace, she was nearly sure that he was referring to something other than just singing.
Basically -- I love both these pairings very much, so if you write for them, I shall be so pleased!!!
Fandom: Cat-Eye Willie Claims His Lover - Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer (Song)
Characters Requested: Any (Bonnie Brown, Cat-Eye Willie)
Fandom Promo Post: https://yuletide.dreamwidth.org/349432.html?thread=5554936#cmt5554936
Prompts: I am always down for uneasily erotic works, and this is just so fascinating. I love the filthiness of "Oh Bonnie make the bed that you were born in/Turn your daddy's picture to the wall." I love the trope of women being won in a card game. I love how Cat-Eye Willie seems to be a fae in human shape. I love how both of the characters are assholes in different ways. I love how she kills him with a silver dagger after he has his way with her---and then REQUESTS TO BE BURIED BESIDE HIM? WHAT? What do you MEAN you've served one master true and only?
I really want more interaction between Bonnie Brown and Cat-Eye Willie. Did she merely destroy his mortal shape? Does he haunt her? Is she irrevocably shaped and changed by this night? Is she even still human now? Has he laid his mark on her? How come no one comes to court her after her asshole husband ~mysteriously passes away~? Or how about an AU where she doesn't kill him quite so soon? Or ever? Or, if you want to explore the wedding night and make it fascinatingly dub-con, I would be so down for that. I'd also love it if Cat-Eye Willie could be worked into classic fey lore. I'd also love to see more card game imagery!
Fandom: Cat-Eye Willie Claims His Lover - Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer (Song)
Characters Requested: Any (Bonnie Brown, Cat-Eye Willie)
Fandom Promo Post: https://yuletide.dreamwidth.org/349432.html?thread=5554936#cmt5554936
Prompts: I am always down for uneasily erotic works, and this is just so fascinating. I love the filthiness of "Oh Bonnie make the bed that you were born in/Turn your daddy's picture to the wall." I love the trope of women being won in a card game. I love how Cat-Eye Willie seems to be a fae in human shape. I love how both of the characters are assholes in different ways. I love how she kills him with a silver dagger after he has his way with her---and then REQUESTS TO BE BURIED BESIDE HIM? WHAT? What do you MEAN you've served one master true and only?
I really want more interaction between Bonnie Brown and Cat-Eye Willie. Did she merely destroy his mortal shape? Does he haunt her? Is she irrevocably shaped and changed by this night? Is she even still human now? Has he laid his mark on her? How come no one comes to court her after her asshole husband ~mysteriously passes away~? Or how about an AU where she doesn't kill him quite so soon? Or ever? Or, if you want to explore the wedding night and make it fascinatingly dub-con, I would be so down for that. I'd also love it if Cat-Eye Willie could be worked into classic fey lore. I'd also love to see more card game imagery!
Fandom Specific DNWs: I know Cat-Eye Willie has devil imagery in the original song, but I'd prefer if you lean more on the fey side than the demonic/devil side.
Fandom: Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett
Characters Requested: Effie Perine, Sam Spade (Maltese Falcon)
Prompts: So I was completely upended by Effie/Sam, to the point that I changed out one of the fandoms I was nominating at the very last second, because they got me so bad. No one told me Effie/Sam was the real tragic love story in this novel, not Brigid/Sam. They're so weird about each other. He's easy and genuine with her in a way he is with no other woman, and he's actually affectionate with her in a way he is with no one else in the story. He's clearly false to and lying to every other woman in this story--but not her. She pushes him to do good things despite himself. I love how witty and charming and head over heels for her she is, even though he knows he's no damned good (even if she doesn't realize quite how bad he is.) Their banter is delightful, and they just match each other's level.
And I'm in love with the fact that after he betrays Brigid and turns her in, when he goes to Effie for comfort, she shrinks from him. And it's the only thing about the whole damned business that actually seems to upset him. He never thought Effie would turn from him.
Her voice was queer as the expression on her face. "You did that, Sam, to her?"
He nodded. "Your Sam's a detective." He looked sharply at her. He put his arm around her waist, his hand on her hip. "She did kill Miles, angel," he said gently, "offhand, like that." He snapped the fingers of his other hand.
She escaped from his arm as if it had hurt her. "Don't, please, don't touch me," she said brokenly. "I know--I know you're right. You're right. But don't touch me now--not now."
Spade's face became pale as his collar.
This makes me absolutely feral. I'm distinctly not normal about them. I really just want more interactions between them--pre-canon, canon, post-canon, though I'm distinctly partial to musings on whether they could survive this. Is the Maltese Falcon affair something that kills their closeness forever? Does she leave him after this? Does he finally realize how much she means to him? How he had a damned good girl on his side, and he wrecked it? And as for pre-canon, however did they establish their easy physical intimacy that results in things like this, "He put a finger on the tip of Effie Perine's nose and flattened it. He put his hands under her elbows, lifted her straight up, and kissed her chin." He's not this cutely physical with anyone else! I don't get the vibe that they've slept together, so how did it happen that he ends up resting his head on her hip when he's thinking? They're just so very strange, and I really want more of them.
Fandom: The Secret Garden - Simon/Norman
Characters Requested: Dr. Neville Craven (Secret Garden - Norman/Simon)
Fandom Promo Post: https://yuletide.dreamwidth.org/349432.html?thread=5556216#cmt5556216
Prompts: Neville Craven is one of my favorite characters in any media. I desperately want more fic exploring him. He's such an absolutely fascinating character to me. Second son who loves his brother with his whole heart, who has dedicated his life to making sure his brother's son lives--and yet is hiding his own unrequited love for his brother's dead wife, as well as his own hurt and pain at her loss. A man who would never consider stealing the manor and grounds from his brother, but who yet still wishes his brother would give them to him, for he is the one who has actually been taking care of them. A man who would never have taken action to steal his brother's wife, but still wished that she would one day turn and see him standing there. A man who does want the best for his nephew, has honestly been doing his best to make him well, but is also a Victwardian doctor, and so he has fundamentally messed Colin up in many ways. The caretaker who has no one taking care of him. A man who is outwardly very selfless but selfish and needing inside. The way he beefs with Mary is also so funny and fascinating (really nearly threw hands with a 13 year old energy.) He's the Gothic Uncle's Brother trying to prevent Mary from becoming a Gothic Heroine and Colin from becoming a Gothic Character. I adore him.
I would love to see him interact with any of the other characters in the tagset--Archie, Lily, or Mary.
For Neville & Archie prompts, I'm obsessed with their messed up caretaker/mentally ill person relationship. They both love each other so so much, and they've hurt each other so so much because they refuse to communicate properly. I would love something exploring Neville's both mingled resentment and deep love for his brother. He wants the opportunities he never got to have, but he also willingly gave up his whole life for his brother. There is deep, deep love there. I'd love something exploring the hurt he feels that his brother doesn't appreciate how much he does taking care of the estate/manor and Archie's child. I'd love to see them growing closer and finally communicating post-canon. I'd love to see something exploring how Neville grew up always being his caretaker. They fascinate me!
In my opinion, Lily's Eyes is not quite enough to explain why Neville is still pining for his brother's wife ten years after his death. I'd love to know more about what about her got him so bad! Why did he fall in love with her? What was their relationship like? Was she fond of him at all, or was she only kind to him for Archie's sake? I have a firm headcanon that he had to help her during her labor until Colin arrived, and I think he must blame himself in part for her death. He is also in the manor far more than Archie, so he must see her ghost more often than Archie does. How much time does he spend pretending he doesn't see her?
And his relationship with Mary is my favorite in the show. They're so very alike in so many ways--both angry, snarky rude people who just want a place of their own. If Colin resembles Archie, Mary resembles Neville. Mary gets her bit of earth--Neville doesn't. When he's in her presence, he descends to her level, and she gets in some very good palpable hits on him. The scene where he asks if she wants Colin to die is so powerful! She breaks through his grew-up-too-fast wall to reach to the neglected child underneath. I really want to see them interacting post-canon--can they ease their rocky start?
I would also be extremely interested in them having a romantic relationship once Mary is older. I'm extremely into substitution issues in ships, and Mary growing up to look like Lily, having her eyes, but her own very Marylike stubbornness and rudeness, her bite and determination. She looks like her, but she's not her, and it's very confusing for Neville's poor heart. I could see them really interacting in fascinating ways romantically--it would be messy but so terribly intriguing. He could mention how Colin would be a suitable suitor, and she could sniff and say he doesn't understand anything--and he doesn't.
And as for Neville on his own prompts, him + the estate musings would be very enjoyable for me. He truly loves the estate; he is the person who takes care of it while its master is off traveling the world. He is the one hampered in its upkeep because its master will not sign papers. And for much of the time, it's just him, the servants, Colin, and the house. That's a rather lonely life.
I'm also always down for unsatisfying masturbation. I can see him waking up in the middle of the night, wanting and panting, and then Colin starts screaming, and he has to get up and go, because he always puts other people's needs before his (or thinks he does.) I would love to see him being despairingly horny over Lily, or in the future, fumbling for intimacy with Mary.
Fandom Specific DNWs: Please no romantic Mary/Neville when she is still a child.
Fandom: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith
Characters Requested: Ben Blake (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn), Francie Nolan
Prompts: I know that in real life, Betty Smith and her Ben did not make it. But I also know Betty Smith wrote one of the most wish-fulfillment novels I've ever read, where an 18 year old and a 20 year old marry in college, get pregnant right off, and they still get their happy ending. So, clearly I'm not the first to wish things could work out for Francie and Ben.
I like Ben, and I refuse to believe Francie will be hung up on Lee forever to the point that she will never find romantic satisfaction with him. Ben is young, and pompous, and very sure of himself, but he also helped her so much with her homework, he took her on a date to a theater, and he didn't want to take advantage of her even though he knew his own mind. It's implied he didn't reach out to her because he was struggling with his own feelings, and he comes back to summer school to be with Francie again! He asks for reassurance that she's glad he came too. Ben has very big political goals; a poor Irish-Austrian Catholic teenager from Brooklyn isn't a benefit to him. But, he wants to marry her anyway. That's something.
Francie continually thinks and talks about wanting to be needed; Ben is very sure-footed. So, clearly, the natural thing is to make him slip. He needs to be put into a position where he needs Francie, and I don't think it would be OOC with the information we have on him to make it happen.
Something I've been musing upon is Francie's urge to cut her hair, and her mother's consistent disapproval, because hair is a woman's crowning beauty. I could see her mentioning casually to Ben that she plans to cut her hair once she gets back from Christmas break, and he is visibly taken aback. I could see him being very into her hair, and I could see him asking her not to cut it (a la A Countess Below Stairs, even). I think Francie would be very into that--possessiveness over your personal appearance seems like something that would appeal to Rommely women. XD
Other ideas are that Ben loses a job opportunity, or his mother (that he's mentioned as being very close to) is ill or dies. Or they do get married, and it's all perfectly companionable for years, but she still doesn't love him--and then the Stock Market crash happens, and then she realizes she does love him. Or, somehow he finds out about Lee? He's in Reserve Officers' Training Corps by the end of the novel, so maybe they cross paths, and he overhears Lee talking with his buddies about a girl who reminds him of Francie. Maybe that makes it click why they don't seem to be as close as they could like.
Ben is a man who plunges headlong into everything but relationships; I want to see him break in that regard. I want Francie to have a romantic relationship where she does feel needed; I don't want her to spend her entire life hung up on a piece of trash. Ben and Francie are both so smart and they get along well, and I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be able to be very happy together.
