Yuletide 2018 DYW letter
Oct. 5th, 2018 08:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skazkaHappy Yuletide! In accordance with the seasons, here is my annual tl;dr Yuletide letter -- feel free to incorporate as little of it as you like. I'm skazka @ AO3 and my past letters can be found here.
Likes:
Some general things I dig:
- historical details, material culture, pop culture
- allegiances and loyalty (especially loyalty kink!)
- nemeses and characters who are just as weird and wound up in each other as enemies as they would be as friends or lovers
- monsters! ghosts, vampires, werewolves, revenants…
- dreams and nightmares
- psychological horror
- body horror (surprise new orifices, involuntarily changing bodies, parasites, viral transformations, losing control over your own body and mind, etc.)
- gothic horror tropes (mystery, wonder, and the macabre, decaying old houses, ancestral curses, family secrets, etc.)
- noir tropes (doubles! identity trouble! perversity, pessimism, fatalism, and menace!)
- claustrophobia, doubt, guilt, decay
- trauma and PTSD, memory and personal baggage
- adventures, mayhem, and voyages of self-discovery
- road trips
- character death
- angst (angsty tormented ladies! angsty tormented dudes! stoic suffering!)
- spooky atmosphere -- decaying hotel rooms, sinister places, oppressive atmospheres
- cozy atmosphere -- small-scale domesticity, hospitality, characters looking after each other
- goofy humor
- characters finding community
- religious themes and elements (whether positive or more ambivalent)
- family relationships and parental baggage
- friends-to-lovers, allies-to-friends-to-lovers, enemies-to-lovers-while-remaining-enemies
- partners in crime
- dramatic irony
- in-universe documents (letters, manuscripts, etc.)
- unusual formats (interactive fiction, illustrated fic, fake academic treatises, etc.)
- continuing adventures and rebuilding friendships
Ship-wise, I dig intimacy between friends and allies, and screwed-up bleak bad-guy hatesex, and just about anything between those poles, really. I especially enjoy:
- loyalty kink
- agonized pining both reciprocated and unreciprocated
- hurt/comfort -- one or more parties getting tragically roughed up or whumped to hell and back and needing stoic ministrations, h/c where a rough or unpleasant person is the recipient of the comfort whether they like it or not, h/c where a villain is doing the comforting
- sex happening before feelings and then feelings show up to the party and make everything weird
- enemies-to-lovers
- quarrelsome but ride-or-die friendships turned romantic
- characters who just can't stay away from each other.
- domesticity and tenderness coming before characters become lovers
If you're interested in writing smut, I love:
- size differences
- age differences
- aggressive inexperienced characters
- body worship
- oral
- handjobs
- frottage and non-penetrative sex
- clothed/semi-clothed sex
- fancy clothes, uniforms, layers, dressing and undressing
- hatesex and fighting-turned-fucking
- breathplay
- inhibitions and interpersonal baggage in the bedroom
- anonymous or pseudo-anonymous hookups
- noncon and dubcon
- painful/clumsy but fun and tender sex, OR, tragically clumsy fail sex
- wound fingering
- sexy use/misuse of magic powers
- characters seeking sex for comfort
- characters having sad sex while thinking of other people (especially if it's two people thinking about the same person!)
- sadomasochism
- rough body play
- smoking/sharing cigarettes/cigarette burns
- time-period-specific sexual practices and meeting places.
I love noncon and dubcon, especially antagonistic or psychologically muddled angles and characters making difficult bargains using sex. I appreciate a focus on difficult/complicated emotions and experiences and the conflicted side of dubcon -- a character having sex they don't uncomplicatedly desire but that they believe will help them achieve some goal, or a character agreeing to sex with someone they hate who doesn't know that that character is planning to undermine them, or a character being attracted to the other character(s) but only consenting to sex due to despair or their usual inhibitions being compromised, for instance. For noncon I especially like to read about horror, discomfort, resistance, self-disgust, and anger on the victim's side -- for perpetrator attitudes I like reading about hatred, mixed feelings, obsessive love, contempt, anything, but I don't care much for ravishment tropes where afterward the rape is a non-issue, or where the rape results in true love and new heights of pleasure and the victim ultimately realizing they wanted and enjoyed it after all. I'm fine with non-explicit noncon and dubcon and would be just as happy with only the aftermath portrayed if that's more in your comfort zone.
I'm fine with any format/structure of fic, from casefic to character study to PWP. As far as nominated characters, you are under zero obligation to include all (or only) my requested characters in the same fic! I'm up for anything in terms of plot and structure: plotty longfic, short and sweet introspection, mysteries, casefic, PWPs, cracky hijinks, five-times fic, etc. Pairing-wise, I've tried to make mention of specific ships I'm especially fond of, including those that extend beyond requested characters, but I'm not monoshippy in any fandom and I'm pretty flexible. I dig slash, femslash, het, gen, and anything else you want to bring to the table genders-wise; feel free to write any kind of pairing you like or none at all, as well as multiple pairings, OT3s and poly relationships, etc. Any level of intensity or non-intensity with regard to sex, violence, character death and other dark stuff is fine by me, including major character death and downer endings on a character-specific scale. A lot of my canons deal on some level with real-life social issues (homophobia, sexual violence, domestic abuse, etc.) and I often appreciate that as an element of these canons' texture; you're welcome to incorporate those social factors in fic or pass by them as you're comfortable.
I'm totally on board with AUs, especially those that riff on or echo the original canon events/ setting. Canon-divergent and for-want-of-a-nail AUs are very welcome, as well as alternate settings, alternate time periods (Early Modern England AU? Ancient Rome? Regency?) and genre/pastiche AUs. (Summer camp romp, film noir, 80s YA, torrid romance novel?) Let the world be your oyster there. I love AUs that racebend characters, always-a-girl genderswaps, and fic where characters are written as trans, though I prefer all of these not to be focused first and foremost on the ensuing hardship -- I prefer more of a "what if?" scenario that deals with identity as well as the other elements of the canon. I'm also happy to receive crossovers and fusions -- if you're not sure if I'm familiar with a fandom from my AO3 fandom list or past request letters, feel free to ask via a mod. I'm open to receiving poetry, but would rather not receive free verse.
If you want to check out my past exchange letters, you can find them here. This year I'm also planning on participating in several other Yuletide challenges like Crueltide/Yuleporn -- keep an eye on this space! ETA 10/18/18: Crueltide / Smutswap
DNWs:
I'd rather not receive fic with self-harm, eating disorders, noncanonical suicide, child sexual abuse, unrequested incest, or depictions of the Holocaust. I don't want to read explicit sex involving characters under 16.
Dislikes:
I don't care for unrequested teacher/student ships or teacher/student AUs, characters overhearing each other masturbating or having sex, spanking (any other kind of impact play or kinky hitting is fine), kissing practice-type tropes, "no, no, yes yes yes!"-type ravishment noncon, fic incorporating contemporary real-life tragedies or modern-day political snafus, supernatural-forces-made-them-do-it/sex pollen, generic modern-day mundane AUs, free verse poetry, Omegaverse/BDSMverse AUs, urban fantasy werewolf tropes like packs and alphas, or post-apocalyptic settings.
I'd also prefer no convenient love interest disposal -- infidelity, polyamory/multiple concurrent relationships, AUs where canonical love interests never dated, and canon ships being framed as having broken up amicably in the past are all fine by me, just not a festival of dead girlfriends to facilitate a primary emphasis on how past relationships don't matter in comparison to this One True Love.
Gilda (1946)
This spectacular movie! It has everything I could possibly want -- messed-up backstabbing, musical numbers, kinky sword-canes, and an incredible stormy heroine whose wardrobe and hair are amazing and who's played by a total cinematic powerhouse. I love the post-war ambience of this film, the setting of the casino itself with all its potential for eavesdropping, and the killer cast.
- Gilda Mundson Farrell
To start with the film's most obvious missing piece: who on earth was Gilda before the story began, and how did she get to where she is when the story starts? Make some of the fabulous implications explicit, or tease out an alternate possibility, however you feel like. What was Gilda doing with her life before meeting Johnny? Before meeting Ballin Mundson? She's an incredibly talented performer and a glamour girl par excellence, but where did she get her start as a performer, and what goes into building up that sense of personal glamour? I'd love a snapshot of Gilda's personality in formation, or the ways her brittle toughness and allure came together. Her mix of toughness and vulnerability is really interesting to me and I'd love to see her getting to win out for once.
Johnny does such a good job of tormenting Gilda (and she him, from a far more disadvantaged position in the eyes of the law) that I have a tough time believing in them getting together at the end as an unalloyed happy ending -- I'd love fic about how their mind games continue after their supposed reunion (provided there's some push and pull and it's not just Gilda being utterly miserable and under Johnny's thumb) or where the climax of the film takes a different turn. If you'd like, I'd love an ultra-destructive bad ending -- heartbreak, murder, court drama, what-have-you -- set after canon wraps up, or any other take where the story doesn't tie up so neatly.
I'd love to read a different spin on the gender roles of the original film -- something where Gilda is a trans woman, or Mundson is a stern scarred older lady and Gilda her protege, or where Johnny is Gilda's marvelously hardboiled butch ex. Or keep the gender/sex permutations of the original film and draw the threesomey M/M/F subtext to the surface a little more -- does Gilda recognize what Johnny can't, or is there something there that none of them will recognize and acknowledge? Does she ever needle the two of them about it, or is that part untouchable?
Something where Johnny is explicitly Mundson's kept boy and he and Gilda ally together instead of turning on one another -- do they overthrow Mundson, or end up turning against each other after all? Does Ballin pit them against each other anyway? Or something where it's Gilda in Johnny's role at the film's start, henching for Mundson with lots of UST, and Johnny who shows up again in her life as her boss' new lover.
Gilda goes to Hollywood -- is everything that happened in Buenos Aires a dirty secret warranting a studio cover-up, or it her springboard to stardom? Alternately, Gilda takes Spanish-language cinema by storm. I love classic film and show-business writing (the sentimental, the gossipy, the strictly factual) and if you choose to write this prompt in retrospective or in-universe document form (snippets from the lost You Must Remember This four-parter about film-star Gilda?) I will owe you my firstborn child.
Sadomasochistic noir games, exhibitionism, infidelity, femdom -- I'd love to read any elaboration on the love-hate dynamic between Johnny and Gilda, either at the time of canon or whatever transpired between them to spark such a poisonous resentment when they finally meet again. What were they like before? How did they part? There's some great fic already that explores their history together but I can't get enough of all different takes on such a complex dynamic, so please don't feel like you're treading already-trodden Yuletide territory. How did Gilda feel about her gilded-cage situation behind closed doors? I'd love fic about her relationships with people who aren't crazy-jealous high rollers, like Uncle Pio, and the relative ease she seems to experience around friendly parties who aren't out to get something from her. (I love Uncle Pio, and if you want to write fic about him and Gilda on the run together I would be all too happy to read 50k of it.) What existed between Gilda and Ballin? Who snared who, in that case, and where did they really meet? If you're dying to write Gilda wrapping Mundson around her little finger or Mundson manipulating the hell out of her (or both) I'd love to read about the ingredients that go into their weird film-noir marriage from hell.
Could there be a scenario where Gilda manages to unravel the tungsten cartel plot and get ahead of both the crummy men in her life? If you like alternate settings and eras, feel free to write the historical AU of your choice -- Gilda as a 16th century Roman courtesan who receives lavish musical instruments as gifts from her paramours, or a scandalous 19th century opera singer, or as tough-as-nails 1970s arm candy…
Ship-wise, I love Gilda/Mundson, Gilda/Johnny (with the caveat that I don't find his cruelty toward her nearly as sexy as her cruelty toward him), Gilda/Johnny/Mundson and Johnny/Mundson.
Bonus smut prompts: sexy dressing and undressing (oh those tricky zippers, they'll get you every time!), anything where Gilda is fully-clothed and her partner is undressed, face-slapping, steppin' on dicks, consensual or nonconsensual exhibitionism, consensual voyeurism.
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Mad Men (TV)
[All seven seasons of Mad Men are streaming on Netflix -- they're available for purchase on many other platforms.]
I love this show's sense of texture and historical place, as well as its extremely cockeyed sense of humor -- every time I talk about this show with fandom friends who haven't seen it they start off under the impression that it's a very serious drama and then I get to the riding lawnmower incident or Sally thinking baby Gene is possessed and it starts to sound more like the absurd marvel that it is. I've seen all extant seasons and I'd love anything set at any point in the show's timeframe or beyond, as well as AUs set in other similar historical settings, especially workplaces. (1960s record label, 1970s nightclub staff, Elizabethan theater company, 1990s Hollywood production company dramafest, '00s tech startup, etc. I have wide parameters for "historical", so feel free to set something in the '00s as long as it's not meant to be contemporary to the present moment.) I love every single accursed character on this show, so feel free to include other characters or write an ensemble piece so long as Ginsberg's in there. (I especially like Peggy, Megan, Joan, Sal, and Bob Benson -- and if you feel like fitting Lane Pryce into there or handwaving his canonical death, go for it.)
Fandom-specific DNW: Please don't write fic that's actually set in a concentration camp or set during the Holocaust. (Yep, this is where that earlier DNW comes in.) You can deal with all the other ways that the Holocaust has shaped Morris and Michael's lives and have characters discuss their experiences, but I'd rather not read fic set in the camps or during that time period directly.
- Michael Ginsberg
Michael Ginsberg as a character is basically made for me -- he's a prickly, vulnerable weirdo with a lot of stuff going on under the surface but he can't manage to restrain all the stuff that makes him visibly different -- and does he even want to? He's marked out by his difference (as a rumpled Brooklyn-accented creative with zero social skills forced to ride in the same elevator as Don Draper, as a Jewish man in a workplace full of casual and not-so-casual antisemitism, as a Holocaust survivor and a mentally ill man, as a potentially-queer man) and he's pretty much the opposite of Don in terms of trying to keep a pretty veneer over those differences, whether that's because he can't or he won't. I love his wit and his sadness and his really questionable outfit choices, as well as the mix of aching fragility and strict defenses he conveys, aaaaand he's not hard on the eyes either. (Even with the mustache.)
I'd love some pre-canon stuff with Ginsberg -- what did his last period of employment before getting taken on at SCDP look like? What was it like growing up with Morris as his dad after the orphanage? When did Ginsberg start exhibiting the talents that will eventually turn into a job in advertising for him? Any scenes with Ginsberg's dad would thrill me -- I love his dad to pieces, and all the unspoken history in their life together, from Ginsberg's unseen childhood to the life they're living together at the time of Ginsberg getting hired at the agency. Their domestic life isn't flawless but feel free to fit all the ambivalent feelings you like in there, or write something where their circumstances take a turn for the better.
Really I'm all about Ginsberg living his truth as a nervous abrasive weirdo -- five times Ginsberg struck out majorly on dates and one time he didn't? Five times Ginsberg pitched something at work and one time he saved an idea for his personal work? I can never get enough of workplace scenarios in this show -- the SCDP equivalent of casefic would thrill me. Ginsberg resolves a conflict, or causes one? Bob Benson convinces Ginsberg to try one of those funny cigarettes and creative genius results, followed by munchies? I'm intrigued by the canon's suggestion that there's something rather like Don at work inside Ginsberg, even if Michael lacks Don's glib veneer when it comes to presenting his ideas, and anything where Ginsberg achieves some modicum of success in the workplace or in the broader field of advertising would thrill me. (Postcanon fic where the former SCDP team run into Ginsberg again when he's a dark-horse Clio winner?) Or just another peek inside Ginsberg's Shit I Gotta Do folder. What kind of ad campaigns would Ginsberg be pitching in the 1970s, or the 1980s?
I'd love anything exploring Ginsberg's break with reality or his mental health deterioration from the inside -- or conversely, the recovery that comes afterward what we see in canon. Ginsberg's last scenes are certainly splashy but that isn't usually where the story really ends for someone in that position, and if you want to explore the mundane side of life after a psychiatric crisis that the show isn't as interested in I'd be thrilled to read it. I'd love to read post-canon fic where Ginsberg comes to a better place with regard to his sexuality, his mental illness, his identity as a Jewish man and a Holocaust survivor -- no matter what that looks like. It seems likely to be an uphill battle given the note on which he leaves the show, but I would love to read about it.
An alternate scenario where Ginsberg quits before a full-on break, or gets help -- or where Ginsberg has his full-on break in another picturesque locale. (Ginsberg goes to California!) Gimme some gothic horror Michael Ginsberg -- I love the weird shadowy nature of his Cinderella pitch, and I'd love anything that explores those haunted shadowy themes in Ginsberg's own life. Feel free to explore your favorite conspiracy theories that were in the air when the show was still airing, or pit Ginsberg against all manner of baddies. Or have Ginsberg be the first person to raise the alarm during an Invasion of the Body Snatchers situation, or indeed a robot takeover.
Ship-wise, I ship Ginsberg with Stan Rizzo, Megan Calvet, Bob Benson, Sal Romano, Lane Pryce, the Chevalier Blanc guy who Don's so critical of, with Don and Roger, and in genderswapped fics with Peggy -- if you'd like to write fic pairing Ginsberg with an OMC/OFC I'd also love to read that. As you can probably tell from the previous list, I see Ginsberg as gay or bisexual, but I'd also be happy to read fic where his sexuality isn't remarked upon. Write the adventures of Ginsberg and Megan as true miserable bisexuals in love -- what do Megan's parents make of Ginsberg? What does Ginsberg's dad make of Megan? Write a Stan/Ginsberg vintage summer camp AU -- I love the history of Jewish summer camps in the Mad Men era and beyond but I'd love anything set in any summertime milieu where these adult men are dirtbag scabby-kneed kids or way underqualified camp counselors trying to make up for totally not being responsible adults with sheer verve. Write an AU where Sal and Ginsberg meet working for an early 70s gay magazine like QQ, or they bump into each other in a gay bar, or in general anything that touches on the big differences in exploring your sexuality in the early 60s versus the early 70s and the gulf between their experiences of being closeted. But really I'm free and easy and I love crack pairings for Mad Men -- something where Michael and Don have a torrid affair? Lane Pryce and Ginsberg on the run from the IRS together and finding love? Something where Ginsberg inadvertently joins Kinsey in a new religious movement and in a higher form of love? Ginsberg has a fling with Trudy and that's why her daughter's "draw a man" exercise includes a mustache? Go to town. Ginsberg is my sharp-tongued little black dress character here.
Bonus smut prompts: Ginsberg getting devirginated. I love that he's a canonical virgin (though as an awkward, introverted, slightly creepy 20something who lives with his dad, there's not a ton of opportunities pre-canon for him to change that) but I'd also love lots of loving focus on him getting to change that and having a good time doing so. Size kink. Touch starvation. Stoned sex. Anonymous hookups/cruising. Hand kink! (God, I love Ginsberg's hands.) Biting, hickeys, any kind of marking.
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The Terror (TV 2018)
This canon was made for me -- the creepy injuries, the major character death, the weird psychosexual wrangling for power, the cannibalism, the comradely bonding, all of it. I love this canon's sense of atmosphere and the oppressive doom hanging over everyone's head. The show's characterization and plot departs from the novel's significantly in a number of ways and while I'm fine with drawing from the novel to fill some gaps, I have a strong preference for the show's choices, especially regarding Hickey's sexuality/relationships, and if you choose to depart from the novel and fill those gaps with your own speculation I wouldn't mind in the least.
I love the entire cast of this series (especially Crozier, Silna, Tozer, Blanky, Sophia Cracroft, Lady Jane, and Goodsir) so feel free to include characters other than just my requested characters or to write an ensemble piece as long as Hickey's in there.
- Cornelius Hickey
Further adventures of this little murderous S.O.B., please! Hickey's a nasty piece of work no matter what, but I'd love to see his wonderfully pragmatic nastiness play out differently. There are a couple points where the expedition itself could have taken a different turn, and I'd love an alternate trajectory for impending doom -- something where Franklin doesn't die so early on and Crozier has to decide whether or not to mutiny with Hickey inserting himself as Crozier's wannabe lieutenant in it all? Something where Hickey doesn't murder the Netsilik family + Irving and co., and has to contrive some other occasion for easily stage-managed conflict?
I'd also love a further scene or a missing scene from canon -- something set back in England before he takes on the identity of the real Cornelius Hickey, something early in his courtship with Gibson, something with him learning more about how to bluff his way through an Arctic voyage, a scene of him through another character's perspective, a missing scene from his mutiny or the aftermath of his very public flogging. I like the occasional moments where Hickey does the right thing, or close to it -- for instance his attempt to cut loose the trapped crewmen during Carnivale, even if that backfires on one particular member of the crew -- and I'd love to read something where Hickey manages to be surprisingly decent while still being a brutally pragmatic scruffy cannibal. If Hickey wins, or manages to cajole Crozier around to seeing things his way, what does his victory look like?
I'm a huge sucker for morality-swapped/role-swapped AUs where canonical heroes are positioned as villains, and the morally gray quality of the show's protagonists makes that an especially attractive prospect -- I can imagine Crozier ending up in a darker moral place than in canon pretty easily, but what would it take for Hickey to step up and be more heroic than usual while still being his usual pragmatic self?
I'd love to read a canon-divergent AU where Irving doesn't snitch on Hickey and Gibson -- what changes? A lot, or only a little? -- or something where the events of "Punished, As A Boy" go off the rails in a different way. Or something where Hickey actually has to cooperate with Silna and follow her lead instead of trying to use her as a bargaining chip -- he clearly thinks he gets what's going on between her and the tuunbaq, but judging by the tuunbaq's response to his overtures he's far off the mark. So how does Hickey understand the supernatural and spiritual milieu the tuunbaq comes from? Or something set late in the mutiny when Hickey's going a little bit weird -- is he really communing with spirits on some level? is he ascending to a higher plane? Is he starving and losing his shit? Hickey as freaky urban mystic, proto-Marxist rebel, Jean Genet-flavored queer criminal, or Arctic tyrant. If you're feeling extra-indulgent, whump the hell out of Hickey and let him deal with it with his customary well-adjusted humility -- give him TB, have him get roughed up or injured, sic the Tuunbaq on him. have him get flogged again, break his nose, cut his ear off, have him suffer in stubborn silence until the discomfort and misery are unbearable or have him make a malingering burden of himself while Goodsir grouses about it, have him grudgingly huddle for warmth. I am a simple reader with simple needs.
Across the board, I'd love alternate takes on the show's horror aspects -- a Frankenstein fusion? A vampire AU influenced by the Demeter sequence in Bram Stoker's Dracula? Something with a danger in the ice more like the creature of John Carpenter's The Thing, or a more Lovecraftian horror in addition to the Tuunbaq? Or if you'd like to write something lighter, I'm fascinated by the history of shipboard entertainments on Arctic and Antarctic voyages, so I'd love to read fic where Hickey gets dragged into participating in an amateur shipboard theatrical, or writes for a shipboard newspaper. If you're feeling festive, there's always the possibility of something set on the previous overwinterings in the ice on Christmas or New Year, or a celebration of days getting longer again -- Hickey contending with other people's impromptu attempts to replicate the experience of a cozy Victorian Christmas when trapped on board ship with nobody but sweaty sailors. (If you need any inspiration, check out Shane McCorristine and Jane Mocellin's Christmas at the Poles: emotions, food, and festivities on polar expeditions, 1818–1912. If you don't have access, have a Hippo hit me up on the Yuletide Discord and I'll ahem a copy of it your way.)The crews of Erebus and Terror finding various ways to remedy the monotony of their predicament (and in general the grand polar exploratory tradition of going stir-crazy and doing weird shit to ward off tedium) is an eternal fascination for me and I'd be totally into any peek at that.
I ship Hickey with practically everybody -- I'd love fic about his canonical relationship with Gibson, a relationship of convenience forged from close proximity and boredom that's clearly blossomed into real (albeit not so selflessly expressed) feelings on Hickey's side, or any other liaisons he may have had before shit really hits the fan. For noncanonical pairings I'd love to read Hickey/Irving, Hickey/Goodsir, Hickey/Tozer, Hickey/Bridgens, or Hickey/any of his fellow would-be mutineers.
I especially have a soft spot in my heart for Hickey/Crozier -- a dubiously ethical liaison sparking off from the drink they share together? a perverse follow-up on "Punished, As A Boy"? much later post-mutiny? Something about Crozier really brings out Hickey's most intense stroppiness -- perhaps the misguided impression that they shared a special understanding and that his abduction of Lady Silence would be rewarded, perhaps a more general authority-figure balkiness -- and conversely, something about Hickey brings out Crozier's dark side big time. If you're feeling shippy -- I'd love something where instead of being Crozier's nemesis (maybe if the flogging didn't happen like it did?) Hickey decided to be Crozier's pet sociopath. Whether that means playing on his weakness for his own ends, or ending up being good for Crozier (for a certain value of "good") is up to you. Alternately, just weird hostage dubcon. Weird hostage dubcon is good.
Bonus smut prompts: Hickey topping physically bigger, higher-ranking, and/or older characters. Size kink in general. Loyalty kink. Anachronistic cigarette kink. (Okay, so we can fanwank them as really skinny cigars or something, that's life.) Beard burn. Fully clothed sex. Noncon and dubcon, with Hickey on either side of things. Hickey showing a more sexually repressed character a good time, or a bad one.
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20th Century Kennedy Family RPF
I love the Kennedy family mythos for its place smack-dab in the 20th century American experience -- WWII on one side, civil rights struggles and the Cold War on the other, and a ton of mythmaking and disillusionment piled on top. I'm interested in the bad as much as the good -- the compromises, broken promises, prejudices, and infidelities, along with the glamour and the idealism and the charisma and the impeccable suntans. Feel free to mine either the romantic side of the Kennedy mystique or the scandal-racked tragic side, I'm easy to please.
- Robert F. Kennedy
I would love fic about all the "sides" of Bobby Kennedy (the selfless, sacrificing side and the ruthless, pugnacious one, the idealist and the compromised compromiser, the family man and the cold cat's-paw) and both the dark and light sides of the Kennedy family itself; don't feel like you need to elide RFK's failures or his less attractive qualities. If you're interested in any kind of historical point of divergence for the whole Kennedy family (something where they stayed in Europe after WWII? something where they stuck to show business instead of politics?) I'd be interested in that too. I'd love anything set in the family's diplomat days or their travels, especially with a focus on Bobby's personal development and his trajectory from runner-up to his older brothers to being indispensable. Anything where later developments add a smidge of dramatic irony, I'm a sucker for that.
From James Hilty's book Brother Protector: "On a Cape Cod sailing excursion the Kennedys, in their typically playful exuberance, once tossed McCarthy overboard and pushed him back under the water each time he tried to climb back aboard. McCarthy gamely clung to the side of the boat, smiling each time he was allowed to surface for air. Only later did they discover that the former marine and ex-boxer had never learned to swim. Um, whoops. RFK and JFK accidentally drown Joe McCarthy, shit hits the fan? Or alternately, something else set in this semi-awkward period where McCarthy was palling it up with the Kennedy family and dating everybody in sight.
An alternate history where JFK isn't assassinated in Dallas -- a near miss? a sudden motorcade route change? -- and the path of history gets even more complicated, not least so for RFK. Or maybe something where RFK is the one who's assassinated in 1963, and the fallout from that. Or anything else about the aftermath of JFK's assassination and the role Bobby took up for Jackie as well as the kids -- I'd prefer something that leans on the complex emotional side of that if you choose to take it an romantic direction, rather than "at LAST, now we can bone down!" but anything in the middle of that absolute swamp of grief and difficult emotions is relevant to my interests.
On the flipside, something where RFK lives in '68 -- either escaping being assassinated or simply surviving the attempt -- and what happens next -- I find alternate history centered around this family really compelling, though I'd especially love stuff that acknowledges their shortcomings and failures (as well as the general difficulties of getting stuff done in midcentury American politics) rather than a single-issue "if RFK lived, all the problems of the second half of the 20th century would have been resolved" fix.
Like a lot of people, I became attracted to Kennedy family history through all the mysterious, murky associations surrounding them -- "the Kennedy curse", violence and grief, infidelity, conspiracy theories, beautiful highs and awful lows. Feel free to dabble in that palette and unravel the mystique a little, or add to it -- are there gothic horrors lurking under the Camelot veneer? Or write RFK unraveling -- or orchestrating -- the conspiracy theory of your choice.
Feel free to dabble in any alternate history of your choice -- either the simple historical divergence variety (or the complicated historical divergence variety) or something else. Something set in the American communist superpower of Eugene Byrne and Kim Newman's Back In The USSA, or the post-vampire US of Anno Dracula, or after first contact with aliens, or after a cold war gone hot, or after a cold war spontaneously resolved and the sweeping sea-change that would result?
Write something set during the Army-McCarthy hearings -- Kennedy and Roy Cohn butting heads, your take on whether RFK was really experiencing qualms about McCarthy in the moment or if that part only came later, unseen vignettes and conversations with no witnesses. Or something set during the Cuban missile crisis -- again, whatever your preferred take on the inner workings of the Kennedy apparatus is, I'd be happy to read about it. I'd love anything involving Bobby and labor organizing, anything with Bobby's cockeyed sense of humor, or anything familial. (Or anything involving Bobby and the Kennedy family's extremely wide circle of acquaintances -- if there's a historical figure who didn't get to bro it up with the Kennedys, feel free to throw them in the mix and imagine how that meeting would go.)
This seems like a great fandom context for in-universe documents -- whether that's transcripts of the sentimental HBO documentaries made in the universe where it's RFK who's assassinated in 1963, or vintage newspaper hot takes from the lame-duck phase of Bobby's final term as president, or transcripts of J. Edgar Hoover's most scandalous wiretaps, or case documents from the Senate subcommittee probing into the mysterious coverup of your choice.
It's a little silly to want historical fix-its but if you want to make things a little less painful for Marilyn Monroe/Rosemary Kennedy/other individuals whose lives were significantly hampered due to Kennedy connections please feel free. When it comes to still-living people or individuals who were linked to the Kennedys through tragedy but weren’t public figures previously, like Mary Jo Kopechne or Juan Romero, please take it easy on them and don't include them as onscreen figures if at all possible. I'm interested in the broader dynamic of the Kennedy family and pretty much everybody in it/adjacent to it, but I'm not much of a fan of Old Joe -- feel free to explore his presence/influence over the family and the way he impacted his children and partners, but if you really want to bump off somebody in your 20th century political RPF please consider Old Joe fair game.
Ship-wise, I'd be interested in anything that pairs him with Jacqueline, Jack, Ethel, LBJ, or Marilyn Monroe -- if assassinated-political-figure RPF incest isn't your cup of tea please don't feel like you have to touch on the second one in any way, but if you are interested check out my 2018 Raremaleslashex letter for prompts related specifically to that. If there's another historical RPF pairing of your heart or you've always really hankered to write hatesex with RFK and J. Edgar Hoover, feel free to incorporate that as well. If you're writing RFK/JFK, I would prefer nothing where they're kids/teenagers when they first get together, or where their involvement with one another is an open secret in the family. I'm more interested in dismal adults who are stuck coming to grips with what they're doing and the risks of it than in the tropes around youthful sexual exploration. I'd also prefer no character bashing aimed at Jacqueline, Ethel, etc. in order to justify infidelity. Pretty much all the Kennedy men to my knowledge engaged in extramarital affairs extensively and I'm fine with fic that deals with that to any degree and with any perspective as long as it doesn't condemn the women to which the Kennedy men were actually married for daring to be hurt by this or daring to turn a blind eye to it for the purposes of keeping the peace.
Bonus smut prompts: Anything that leverages the material culture of all these hyper-manly 1950s and 1960s spaces (everybody smokes! everybody's wearing suits! everybody's on sailboats!) for great filth. Sneaking off at the family compound in search of impromptu trysting places. Poolside shenanigans. Pillow talk. Sex on boats.
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Likes:
Some general things I dig:
- historical details, material culture, pop culture
- allegiances and loyalty (especially loyalty kink!)
- nemeses and characters who are just as weird and wound up in each other as enemies as they would be as friends or lovers
- monsters! ghosts, vampires, werewolves, revenants…
- dreams and nightmares
- psychological horror
- body horror (surprise new orifices, involuntarily changing bodies, parasites, viral transformations, losing control over your own body and mind, etc.)
- gothic horror tropes (mystery, wonder, and the macabre, decaying old houses, ancestral curses, family secrets, etc.)
- noir tropes (doubles! identity trouble! perversity, pessimism, fatalism, and menace!)
- claustrophobia, doubt, guilt, decay
- trauma and PTSD, memory and personal baggage
- adventures, mayhem, and voyages of self-discovery
- road trips
- character death
- angst (angsty tormented ladies! angsty tormented dudes! stoic suffering!)
- spooky atmosphere -- decaying hotel rooms, sinister places, oppressive atmospheres
- cozy atmosphere -- small-scale domesticity, hospitality, characters looking after each other
- goofy humor
- characters finding community
- religious themes and elements (whether positive or more ambivalent)
- family relationships and parental baggage
- friends-to-lovers, allies-to-friends-to-lovers, enemies-to-lovers-while-remaining-enemies
- partners in crime
- dramatic irony
- in-universe documents (letters, manuscripts, etc.)
- unusual formats (interactive fiction, illustrated fic, fake academic treatises, etc.)
- continuing adventures and rebuilding friendships
Ship-wise, I dig intimacy between friends and allies, and screwed-up bleak bad-guy hatesex, and just about anything between those poles, really. I especially enjoy:
- loyalty kink
- agonized pining both reciprocated and unreciprocated
- hurt/comfort -- one or more parties getting tragically roughed up or whumped to hell and back and needing stoic ministrations, h/c where a rough or unpleasant person is the recipient of the comfort whether they like it or not, h/c where a villain is doing the comforting
- sex happening before feelings and then feelings show up to the party and make everything weird
- enemies-to-lovers
- quarrelsome but ride-or-die friendships turned romantic
- characters who just can't stay away from each other.
- domesticity and tenderness coming before characters become lovers
If you're interested in writing smut, I love:
- size differences
- age differences
- aggressive inexperienced characters
- body worship
- oral
- handjobs
- frottage and non-penetrative sex
- clothed/semi-clothed sex
- fancy clothes, uniforms, layers, dressing and undressing
- hatesex and fighting-turned-fucking
- breathplay
- inhibitions and interpersonal baggage in the bedroom
- anonymous or pseudo-anonymous hookups
- noncon and dubcon
- painful/clumsy but fun and tender sex, OR, tragically clumsy fail sex
- wound fingering
- sexy use/misuse of magic powers
- characters seeking sex for comfort
- characters having sad sex while thinking of other people (especially if it's two people thinking about the same person!)
- sadomasochism
- rough body play
- smoking/sharing cigarettes/cigarette burns
- time-period-specific sexual practices and meeting places.
I love noncon and dubcon, especially antagonistic or psychologically muddled angles and characters making difficult bargains using sex. I appreciate a focus on difficult/complicated emotions and experiences and the conflicted side of dubcon -- a character having sex they don't uncomplicatedly desire but that they believe will help them achieve some goal, or a character agreeing to sex with someone they hate who doesn't know that that character is planning to undermine them, or a character being attracted to the other character(s) but only consenting to sex due to despair or their usual inhibitions being compromised, for instance. For noncon I especially like to read about horror, discomfort, resistance, self-disgust, and anger on the victim's side -- for perpetrator attitudes I like reading about hatred, mixed feelings, obsessive love, contempt, anything, but I don't care much for ravishment tropes where afterward the rape is a non-issue, or where the rape results in true love and new heights of pleasure and the victim ultimately realizing they wanted and enjoyed it after all. I'm fine with non-explicit noncon and dubcon and would be just as happy with only the aftermath portrayed if that's more in your comfort zone.
I'm fine with any format/structure of fic, from casefic to character study to PWP. As far as nominated characters, you are under zero obligation to include all (or only) my requested characters in the same fic! I'm up for anything in terms of plot and structure: plotty longfic, short and sweet introspection, mysteries, casefic, PWPs, cracky hijinks, five-times fic, etc. Pairing-wise, I've tried to make mention of specific ships I'm especially fond of, including those that extend beyond requested characters, but I'm not monoshippy in any fandom and I'm pretty flexible. I dig slash, femslash, het, gen, and anything else you want to bring to the table genders-wise; feel free to write any kind of pairing you like or none at all, as well as multiple pairings, OT3s and poly relationships, etc. Any level of intensity or non-intensity with regard to sex, violence, character death and other dark stuff is fine by me, including major character death and downer endings on a character-specific scale. A lot of my canons deal on some level with real-life social issues (homophobia, sexual violence, domestic abuse, etc.) and I often appreciate that as an element of these canons' texture; you're welcome to incorporate those social factors in fic or pass by them as you're comfortable.
I'm totally on board with AUs, especially those that riff on or echo the original canon events/ setting. Canon-divergent and for-want-of-a-nail AUs are very welcome, as well as alternate settings, alternate time periods (Early Modern England AU? Ancient Rome? Regency?) and genre/pastiche AUs. (Summer camp romp, film noir, 80s YA, torrid romance novel?) Let the world be your oyster there. I love AUs that racebend characters, always-a-girl genderswaps, and fic where characters are written as trans, though I prefer all of these not to be focused first and foremost on the ensuing hardship -- I prefer more of a "what if?" scenario that deals with identity as well as the other elements of the canon. I'm also happy to receive crossovers and fusions -- if you're not sure if I'm familiar with a fandom from my AO3 fandom list or past request letters, feel free to ask via a mod. I'm open to receiving poetry, but would rather not receive free verse.
If you want to check out my past exchange letters, you can find them here. This year I'm also planning on participating in several other Yuletide challenges like Crueltide/Yuleporn -- keep an eye on this space! ETA 10/18/18: Crueltide / Smutswap
DNWs:
I'd rather not receive fic with self-harm, eating disorders, noncanonical suicide, child sexual abuse, unrequested incest, or depictions of the Holocaust. I don't want to read explicit sex involving characters under 16.
Dislikes:
I don't care for unrequested teacher/student ships or teacher/student AUs, characters overhearing each other masturbating or having sex, spanking (any other kind of impact play or kinky hitting is fine), kissing practice-type tropes, "no, no, yes yes yes!"-type ravishment noncon, fic incorporating contemporary real-life tragedies or modern-day political snafus, supernatural-forces-made-them-do-it/sex pollen, generic modern-day mundane AUs, free verse poetry, Omegaverse/BDSMverse AUs, urban fantasy werewolf tropes like packs and alphas, or post-apocalyptic settings.
I'd also prefer no convenient love interest disposal -- infidelity, polyamory/multiple concurrent relationships, AUs where canonical love interests never dated, and canon ships being framed as having broken up amicably in the past are all fine by me, just not a festival of dead girlfriends to facilitate a primary emphasis on how past relationships don't matter in comparison to this One True Love.
Gilda (1946)
This spectacular movie! It has everything I could possibly want -- messed-up backstabbing, musical numbers, kinky sword-canes, and an incredible stormy heroine whose wardrobe and hair are amazing and who's played by a total cinematic powerhouse. I love the post-war ambience of this film, the setting of the casino itself with all its potential for eavesdropping, and the killer cast.
- Gilda Mundson Farrell
To start with the film's most obvious missing piece: who on earth was Gilda before the story began, and how did she get to where she is when the story starts? Make some of the fabulous implications explicit, or tease out an alternate possibility, however you feel like. What was Gilda doing with her life before meeting Johnny? Before meeting Ballin Mundson? She's an incredibly talented performer and a glamour girl par excellence, but where did she get her start as a performer, and what goes into building up that sense of personal glamour? I'd love a snapshot of Gilda's personality in formation, or the ways her brittle toughness and allure came together. Her mix of toughness and vulnerability is really interesting to me and I'd love to see her getting to win out for once.
Johnny does such a good job of tormenting Gilda (and she him, from a far more disadvantaged position in the eyes of the law) that I have a tough time believing in them getting together at the end as an unalloyed happy ending -- I'd love fic about how their mind games continue after their supposed reunion (provided there's some push and pull and it's not just Gilda being utterly miserable and under Johnny's thumb) or where the climax of the film takes a different turn. If you'd like, I'd love an ultra-destructive bad ending -- heartbreak, murder, court drama, what-have-you -- set after canon wraps up, or any other take where the story doesn't tie up so neatly.
I'd love to read a different spin on the gender roles of the original film -- something where Gilda is a trans woman, or Mundson is a stern scarred older lady and Gilda her protege, or where Johnny is Gilda's marvelously hardboiled butch ex. Or keep the gender/sex permutations of the original film and draw the threesomey M/M/F subtext to the surface a little more -- does Gilda recognize what Johnny can't, or is there something there that none of them will recognize and acknowledge? Does she ever needle the two of them about it, or is that part untouchable?
Something where Johnny is explicitly Mundson's kept boy and he and Gilda ally together instead of turning on one another -- do they overthrow Mundson, or end up turning against each other after all? Does Ballin pit them against each other anyway? Or something where it's Gilda in Johnny's role at the film's start, henching for Mundson with lots of UST, and Johnny who shows up again in her life as her boss' new lover.
Gilda goes to Hollywood -- is everything that happened in Buenos Aires a dirty secret warranting a studio cover-up, or it her springboard to stardom? Alternately, Gilda takes Spanish-language cinema by storm. I love classic film and show-business writing (the sentimental, the gossipy, the strictly factual) and if you choose to write this prompt in retrospective or in-universe document form (snippets from the lost You Must Remember This four-parter about film-star Gilda?) I will owe you my firstborn child.
Sadomasochistic noir games, exhibitionism, infidelity, femdom -- I'd love to read any elaboration on the love-hate dynamic between Johnny and Gilda, either at the time of canon or whatever transpired between them to spark such a poisonous resentment when they finally meet again. What were they like before? How did they part? There's some great fic already that explores their history together but I can't get enough of all different takes on such a complex dynamic, so please don't feel like you're treading already-trodden Yuletide territory. How did Gilda feel about her gilded-cage situation behind closed doors? I'd love fic about her relationships with people who aren't crazy-jealous high rollers, like Uncle Pio, and the relative ease she seems to experience around friendly parties who aren't out to get something from her. (I love Uncle Pio, and if you want to write fic about him and Gilda on the run together I would be all too happy to read 50k of it.) What existed between Gilda and Ballin? Who snared who, in that case, and where did they really meet? If you're dying to write Gilda wrapping Mundson around her little finger or Mundson manipulating the hell out of her (or both) I'd love to read about the ingredients that go into their weird film-noir marriage from hell.
Could there be a scenario where Gilda manages to unravel the tungsten cartel plot and get ahead of both the crummy men in her life? If you like alternate settings and eras, feel free to write the historical AU of your choice -- Gilda as a 16th century Roman courtesan who receives lavish musical instruments as gifts from her paramours, or a scandalous 19th century opera singer, or as tough-as-nails 1970s arm candy…
Ship-wise, I love Gilda/Mundson, Gilda/Johnny (with the caveat that I don't find his cruelty toward her nearly as sexy as her cruelty toward him), Gilda/Johnny/Mundson and Johnny/Mundson.
Bonus smut prompts: sexy dressing and undressing (oh those tricky zippers, they'll get you every time!), anything where Gilda is fully-clothed and her partner is undressed, face-slapping, steppin' on dicks, consensual or nonconsensual exhibitionism, consensual voyeurism.
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Mad Men (TV)
[All seven seasons of Mad Men are streaming on Netflix -- they're available for purchase on many other platforms.]
I love this show's sense of texture and historical place, as well as its extremely cockeyed sense of humor -- every time I talk about this show with fandom friends who haven't seen it they start off under the impression that it's a very serious drama and then I get to the riding lawnmower incident or Sally thinking baby Gene is possessed and it starts to sound more like the absurd marvel that it is. I've seen all extant seasons and I'd love anything set at any point in the show's timeframe or beyond, as well as AUs set in other similar historical settings, especially workplaces. (1960s record label, 1970s nightclub staff, Elizabethan theater company, 1990s Hollywood production company dramafest, '00s tech startup, etc. I have wide parameters for "historical", so feel free to set something in the '00s as long as it's not meant to be contemporary to the present moment.) I love every single accursed character on this show, so feel free to include other characters or write an ensemble piece so long as Ginsberg's in there. (I especially like Peggy, Megan, Joan, Sal, and Bob Benson -- and if you feel like fitting Lane Pryce into there or handwaving his canonical death, go for it.)
Fandom-specific DNW: Please don't write fic that's actually set in a concentration camp or set during the Holocaust. (Yep, this is where that earlier DNW comes in.) You can deal with all the other ways that the Holocaust has shaped Morris and Michael's lives and have characters discuss their experiences, but I'd rather not read fic set in the camps or during that time period directly.
- Michael Ginsberg
Michael Ginsberg as a character is basically made for me -- he's a prickly, vulnerable weirdo with a lot of stuff going on under the surface but he can't manage to restrain all the stuff that makes him visibly different -- and does he even want to? He's marked out by his difference (as a rumpled Brooklyn-accented creative with zero social skills forced to ride in the same elevator as Don Draper, as a Jewish man in a workplace full of casual and not-so-casual antisemitism, as a Holocaust survivor and a mentally ill man, as a potentially-queer man) and he's pretty much the opposite of Don in terms of trying to keep a pretty veneer over those differences, whether that's because he can't or he won't. I love his wit and his sadness and his really questionable outfit choices, as well as the mix of aching fragility and strict defenses he conveys, aaaaand he's not hard on the eyes either. (Even with the mustache.)
I'd love some pre-canon stuff with Ginsberg -- what did his last period of employment before getting taken on at SCDP look like? What was it like growing up with Morris as his dad after the orphanage? When did Ginsberg start exhibiting the talents that will eventually turn into a job in advertising for him? Any scenes with Ginsberg's dad would thrill me -- I love his dad to pieces, and all the unspoken history in their life together, from Ginsberg's unseen childhood to the life they're living together at the time of Ginsberg getting hired at the agency. Their domestic life isn't flawless but feel free to fit all the ambivalent feelings you like in there, or write something where their circumstances take a turn for the better.
Really I'm all about Ginsberg living his truth as a nervous abrasive weirdo -- five times Ginsberg struck out majorly on dates and one time he didn't? Five times Ginsberg pitched something at work and one time he saved an idea for his personal work? I can never get enough of workplace scenarios in this show -- the SCDP equivalent of casefic would thrill me. Ginsberg resolves a conflict, or causes one? Bob Benson convinces Ginsberg to try one of those funny cigarettes and creative genius results, followed by munchies? I'm intrigued by the canon's suggestion that there's something rather like Don at work inside Ginsberg, even if Michael lacks Don's glib veneer when it comes to presenting his ideas, and anything where Ginsberg achieves some modicum of success in the workplace or in the broader field of advertising would thrill me. (Postcanon fic where the former SCDP team run into Ginsberg again when he's a dark-horse Clio winner?) Or just another peek inside Ginsberg's Shit I Gotta Do folder. What kind of ad campaigns would Ginsberg be pitching in the 1970s, or the 1980s?
I'd love anything exploring Ginsberg's break with reality or his mental health deterioration from the inside -- or conversely, the recovery that comes afterward what we see in canon. Ginsberg's last scenes are certainly splashy but that isn't usually where the story really ends for someone in that position, and if you want to explore the mundane side of life after a psychiatric crisis that the show isn't as interested in I'd be thrilled to read it. I'd love to read post-canon fic where Ginsberg comes to a better place with regard to his sexuality, his mental illness, his identity as a Jewish man and a Holocaust survivor -- no matter what that looks like. It seems likely to be an uphill battle given the note on which he leaves the show, but I would love to read about it.
An alternate scenario where Ginsberg quits before a full-on break, or gets help -- or where Ginsberg has his full-on break in another picturesque locale. (Ginsberg goes to California!) Gimme some gothic horror Michael Ginsberg -- I love the weird shadowy nature of his Cinderella pitch, and I'd love anything that explores those haunted shadowy themes in Ginsberg's own life. Feel free to explore your favorite conspiracy theories that were in the air when the show was still airing, or pit Ginsberg against all manner of baddies. Or have Ginsberg be the first person to raise the alarm during an Invasion of the Body Snatchers situation, or indeed a robot takeover.
Ship-wise, I ship Ginsberg with Stan Rizzo, Megan Calvet, Bob Benson, Sal Romano, Lane Pryce, the Chevalier Blanc guy who Don's so critical of, with Don and Roger, and in genderswapped fics with Peggy -- if you'd like to write fic pairing Ginsberg with an OMC/OFC I'd also love to read that. As you can probably tell from the previous list, I see Ginsberg as gay or bisexual, but I'd also be happy to read fic where his sexuality isn't remarked upon. Write the adventures of Ginsberg and Megan as true miserable bisexuals in love -- what do Megan's parents make of Ginsberg? What does Ginsberg's dad make of Megan? Write a Stan/Ginsberg vintage summer camp AU -- I love the history of Jewish summer camps in the Mad Men era and beyond but I'd love anything set in any summertime milieu where these adult men are dirtbag scabby-kneed kids or way underqualified camp counselors trying to make up for totally not being responsible adults with sheer verve. Write an AU where Sal and Ginsberg meet working for an early 70s gay magazine like QQ, or they bump into each other in a gay bar, or in general anything that touches on the big differences in exploring your sexuality in the early 60s versus the early 70s and the gulf between their experiences of being closeted. But really I'm free and easy and I love crack pairings for Mad Men -- something where Michael and Don have a torrid affair? Lane Pryce and Ginsberg on the run from the IRS together and finding love? Something where Ginsberg inadvertently joins Kinsey in a new religious movement and in a higher form of love? Ginsberg has a fling with Trudy and that's why her daughter's "draw a man" exercise includes a mustache? Go to town. Ginsberg is my sharp-tongued little black dress character here.
Bonus smut prompts: Ginsberg getting devirginated. I love that he's a canonical virgin (though as an awkward, introverted, slightly creepy 20something who lives with his dad, there's not a ton of opportunities pre-canon for him to change that) but I'd also love lots of loving focus on him getting to change that and having a good time doing so. Size kink. Touch starvation. Stoned sex. Anonymous hookups/cruising. Hand kink! (God, I love Ginsberg's hands.) Biting, hickeys, any kind of marking.
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The Terror (TV 2018)
This canon was made for me -- the creepy injuries, the major character death, the weird psychosexual wrangling for power, the cannibalism, the comradely bonding, all of it. I love this canon's sense of atmosphere and the oppressive doom hanging over everyone's head. The show's characterization and plot departs from the novel's significantly in a number of ways and while I'm fine with drawing from the novel to fill some gaps, I have a strong preference for the show's choices, especially regarding Hickey's sexuality/relationships, and if you choose to depart from the novel and fill those gaps with your own speculation I wouldn't mind in the least.
I love the entire cast of this series (especially Crozier, Silna, Tozer, Blanky, Sophia Cracroft, Lady Jane, and Goodsir) so feel free to include characters other than just my requested characters or to write an ensemble piece as long as Hickey's in there.
- Cornelius Hickey
Further adventures of this little murderous S.O.B., please! Hickey's a nasty piece of work no matter what, but I'd love to see his wonderfully pragmatic nastiness play out differently. There are a couple points where the expedition itself could have taken a different turn, and I'd love an alternate trajectory for impending doom -- something where Franklin doesn't die so early on and Crozier has to decide whether or not to mutiny with Hickey inserting himself as Crozier's wannabe lieutenant in it all? Something where Hickey doesn't murder the Netsilik family + Irving and co., and has to contrive some other occasion for easily stage-managed conflict?
I'd also love a further scene or a missing scene from canon -- something set back in England before he takes on the identity of the real Cornelius Hickey, something early in his courtship with Gibson, something with him learning more about how to bluff his way through an Arctic voyage, a scene of him through another character's perspective, a missing scene from his mutiny or the aftermath of his very public flogging. I like the occasional moments where Hickey does the right thing, or close to it -- for instance his attempt to cut loose the trapped crewmen during Carnivale, even if that backfires on one particular member of the crew -- and I'd love to read something where Hickey manages to be surprisingly decent while still being a brutally pragmatic scruffy cannibal. If Hickey wins, or manages to cajole Crozier around to seeing things his way, what does his victory look like?
I'm a huge sucker for morality-swapped/role-swapped AUs where canonical heroes are positioned as villains, and the morally gray quality of the show's protagonists makes that an especially attractive prospect -- I can imagine Crozier ending up in a darker moral place than in canon pretty easily, but what would it take for Hickey to step up and be more heroic than usual while still being his usual pragmatic self?
I'd love to read a canon-divergent AU where Irving doesn't snitch on Hickey and Gibson -- what changes? A lot, or only a little? -- or something where the events of "Punished, As A Boy" go off the rails in a different way. Or something where Hickey actually has to cooperate with Silna and follow her lead instead of trying to use her as a bargaining chip -- he clearly thinks he gets what's going on between her and the tuunbaq, but judging by the tuunbaq's response to his overtures he's far off the mark. So how does Hickey understand the supernatural and spiritual milieu the tuunbaq comes from? Or something set late in the mutiny when Hickey's going a little bit weird -- is he really communing with spirits on some level? is he ascending to a higher plane? Is he starving and losing his shit? Hickey as freaky urban mystic, proto-Marxist rebel, Jean Genet-flavored queer criminal, or Arctic tyrant. If you're feeling extra-indulgent, whump the hell out of Hickey and let him deal with it with his customary well-adjusted humility -- give him TB, have him get roughed up or injured, sic the Tuunbaq on him. have him get flogged again, break his nose, cut his ear off, have him suffer in stubborn silence until the discomfort and misery are unbearable or have him make a malingering burden of himself while Goodsir grouses about it, have him grudgingly huddle for warmth. I am a simple reader with simple needs.
Across the board, I'd love alternate takes on the show's horror aspects -- a Frankenstein fusion? A vampire AU influenced by the Demeter sequence in Bram Stoker's Dracula? Something with a danger in the ice more like the creature of John Carpenter's The Thing, or a more Lovecraftian horror in addition to the Tuunbaq? Or if you'd like to write something lighter, I'm fascinated by the history of shipboard entertainments on Arctic and Antarctic voyages, so I'd love to read fic where Hickey gets dragged into participating in an amateur shipboard theatrical, or writes for a shipboard newspaper. If you're feeling festive, there's always the possibility of something set on the previous overwinterings in the ice on Christmas or New Year, or a celebration of days getting longer again -- Hickey contending with other people's impromptu attempts to replicate the experience of a cozy Victorian Christmas when trapped on board ship with nobody but sweaty sailors. (If you need any inspiration, check out Shane McCorristine and Jane Mocellin's Christmas at the Poles: emotions, food, and festivities on polar expeditions, 1818–1912. If you don't have access, have a Hippo hit me up on the Yuletide Discord and I'll ahem a copy of it your way.)The crews of Erebus and Terror finding various ways to remedy the monotony of their predicament (and in general the grand polar exploratory tradition of going stir-crazy and doing weird shit to ward off tedium) is an eternal fascination for me and I'd be totally into any peek at that.
I ship Hickey with practically everybody -- I'd love fic about his canonical relationship with Gibson, a relationship of convenience forged from close proximity and boredom that's clearly blossomed into real (albeit not so selflessly expressed) feelings on Hickey's side, or any other liaisons he may have had before shit really hits the fan. For noncanonical pairings I'd love to read Hickey/Irving, Hickey/Goodsir, Hickey/Tozer, Hickey/Bridgens, or Hickey/any of his fellow would-be mutineers.
I especially have a soft spot in my heart for Hickey/Crozier -- a dubiously ethical liaison sparking off from the drink they share together? a perverse follow-up on "Punished, As A Boy"? much later post-mutiny? Something about Crozier really brings out Hickey's most intense stroppiness -- perhaps the misguided impression that they shared a special understanding and that his abduction of Lady Silence would be rewarded, perhaps a more general authority-figure balkiness -- and conversely, something about Hickey brings out Crozier's dark side big time. If you're feeling shippy -- I'd love something where instead of being Crozier's nemesis (maybe if the flogging didn't happen like it did?) Hickey decided to be Crozier's pet sociopath. Whether that means playing on his weakness for his own ends, or ending up being good for Crozier (for a certain value of "good") is up to you. Alternately, just weird hostage dubcon. Weird hostage dubcon is good.
Bonus smut prompts: Hickey topping physically bigger, higher-ranking, and/or older characters. Size kink in general. Loyalty kink. Anachronistic cigarette kink. (Okay, so we can fanwank them as really skinny cigars or something, that's life.) Beard burn. Fully clothed sex. Noncon and dubcon, with Hickey on either side of things. Hickey showing a more sexually repressed character a good time, or a bad one.
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20th Century Kennedy Family RPF
I love the Kennedy family mythos for its place smack-dab in the 20th century American experience -- WWII on one side, civil rights struggles and the Cold War on the other, and a ton of mythmaking and disillusionment piled on top. I'm interested in the bad as much as the good -- the compromises, broken promises, prejudices, and infidelities, along with the glamour and the idealism and the charisma and the impeccable suntans. Feel free to mine either the romantic side of the Kennedy mystique or the scandal-racked tragic side, I'm easy to please.
- Robert F. Kennedy
I would love fic about all the "sides" of Bobby Kennedy (the selfless, sacrificing side and the ruthless, pugnacious one, the idealist and the compromised compromiser, the family man and the cold cat's-paw) and both the dark and light sides of the Kennedy family itself; don't feel like you need to elide RFK's failures or his less attractive qualities. If you're interested in any kind of historical point of divergence for the whole Kennedy family (something where they stayed in Europe after WWII? something where they stuck to show business instead of politics?) I'd be interested in that too. I'd love anything set in the family's diplomat days or their travels, especially with a focus on Bobby's personal development and his trajectory from runner-up to his older brothers to being indispensable. Anything where later developments add a smidge of dramatic irony, I'm a sucker for that.
From James Hilty's book Brother Protector: "On a Cape Cod sailing excursion the Kennedys, in their typically playful exuberance, once tossed McCarthy overboard and pushed him back under the water each time he tried to climb back aboard. McCarthy gamely clung to the side of the boat, smiling each time he was allowed to surface for air. Only later did they discover that the former marine and ex-boxer had never learned to swim. Um, whoops. RFK and JFK accidentally drown Joe McCarthy, shit hits the fan? Or alternately, something else set in this semi-awkward period where McCarthy was palling it up with the Kennedy family and dating everybody in sight.
An alternate history where JFK isn't assassinated in Dallas -- a near miss? a sudden motorcade route change? -- and the path of history gets even more complicated, not least so for RFK. Or maybe something where RFK is the one who's assassinated in 1963, and the fallout from that. Or anything else about the aftermath of JFK's assassination and the role Bobby took up for Jackie as well as the kids -- I'd prefer something that leans on the complex emotional side of that if you choose to take it an romantic direction, rather than "at LAST, now we can bone down!" but anything in the middle of that absolute swamp of grief and difficult emotions is relevant to my interests.
On the flipside, something where RFK lives in '68 -- either escaping being assassinated or simply surviving the attempt -- and what happens next -- I find alternate history centered around this family really compelling, though I'd especially love stuff that acknowledges their shortcomings and failures (as well as the general difficulties of getting stuff done in midcentury American politics) rather than a single-issue "if RFK lived, all the problems of the second half of the 20th century would have been resolved" fix.
Like a lot of people, I became attracted to Kennedy family history through all the mysterious, murky associations surrounding them -- "the Kennedy curse", violence and grief, infidelity, conspiracy theories, beautiful highs and awful lows. Feel free to dabble in that palette and unravel the mystique a little, or add to it -- are there gothic horrors lurking under the Camelot veneer? Or write RFK unraveling -- or orchestrating -- the conspiracy theory of your choice.
Feel free to dabble in any alternate history of your choice -- either the simple historical divergence variety (or the complicated historical divergence variety) or something else. Something set in the American communist superpower of Eugene Byrne and Kim Newman's Back In The USSA, or the post-vampire US of Anno Dracula, or after first contact with aliens, or after a cold war gone hot, or after a cold war spontaneously resolved and the sweeping sea-change that would result?
Write something set during the Army-McCarthy hearings -- Kennedy and Roy Cohn butting heads, your take on whether RFK was really experiencing qualms about McCarthy in the moment or if that part only came later, unseen vignettes and conversations with no witnesses. Or something set during the Cuban missile crisis -- again, whatever your preferred take on the inner workings of the Kennedy apparatus is, I'd be happy to read about it. I'd love anything involving Bobby and labor organizing, anything with Bobby's cockeyed sense of humor, or anything familial. (Or anything involving Bobby and the Kennedy family's extremely wide circle of acquaintances -- if there's a historical figure who didn't get to bro it up with the Kennedys, feel free to throw them in the mix and imagine how that meeting would go.)
This seems like a great fandom context for in-universe documents -- whether that's transcripts of the sentimental HBO documentaries made in the universe where it's RFK who's assassinated in 1963, or vintage newspaper hot takes from the lame-duck phase of Bobby's final term as president, or transcripts of J. Edgar Hoover's most scandalous wiretaps, or case documents from the Senate subcommittee probing into the mysterious coverup of your choice.
It's a little silly to want historical fix-its but if you want to make things a little less painful for Marilyn Monroe/Rosemary Kennedy/other individuals whose lives were significantly hampered due to Kennedy connections please feel free. When it comes to still-living people or individuals who were linked to the Kennedys through tragedy but weren’t public figures previously, like Mary Jo Kopechne or Juan Romero, please take it easy on them and don't include them as onscreen figures if at all possible. I'm interested in the broader dynamic of the Kennedy family and pretty much everybody in it/adjacent to it, but I'm not much of a fan of Old Joe -- feel free to explore his presence/influence over the family and the way he impacted his children and partners, but if you really want to bump off somebody in your 20th century political RPF please consider Old Joe fair game.
Ship-wise, I'd be interested in anything that pairs him with Jacqueline, Jack, Ethel, LBJ, or Marilyn Monroe -- if assassinated-political-figure RPF incest isn't your cup of tea please don't feel like you have to touch on the second one in any way, but if you are interested check out my 2018 Raremaleslashex letter for prompts related specifically to that. If there's another historical RPF pairing of your heart or you've always really hankered to write hatesex with RFK and J. Edgar Hoover, feel free to incorporate that as well. If you're writing RFK/JFK, I would prefer nothing where they're kids/teenagers when they first get together, or where their involvement with one another is an open secret in the family. I'm more interested in dismal adults who are stuck coming to grips with what they're doing and the risks of it than in the tropes around youthful sexual exploration. I'd also prefer no character bashing aimed at Jacqueline, Ethel, etc. in order to justify infidelity. Pretty much all the Kennedy men to my knowledge engaged in extramarital affairs extensively and I'm fine with fic that deals with that to any degree and with any perspective as long as it doesn't condemn the women to which the Kennedy men were actually married for daring to be hurt by this or daring to turn a blind eye to it for the purposes of keeping the peace.
Bonus smut prompts: Anything that leverages the material culture of all these hyper-manly 1950s and 1960s spaces (everybody smokes! everybody's wearing suits! everybody's on sailboats!) for great filth. Sneaking off at the family compound in search of impromptu trysting places. Poolside shenanigans. Pillow talk. Sex on boats.
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(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-12 03:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-14 01:00 am (UTC)