Id Pro Quo 2020 letter
Jan. 30th, 2020 10:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skazka(Id Pro Quo is a fic exchange dedicated to pure distilled idfic.)
Given the nature of this exchange, I'm going to open up the floodgates for whatever formats, genres, tropes, etc. happen to float a writer's particular boat -- feel free to include other unrequested characters, mentions of other ships, unusual formats, stealth crossovers, links to outfits in the author's notes, moodboards, Some general things I dig:
- historical details, material culture, pop culture -- indulgent descriptions of garments and outfits, furniture and textiles, perfumes and fragrance. I love the material details of life in all of these canons' settings, but I'm always a huge sucker for descriptions of the world of smell, whether that's sweaty duelist armpits or a surprise whiff of clove pomade or the smell of clothes kept boxed up for storage with herbs for pest control.
- allegiances and loyalty (especially loyalty kink!) -- grand gestures, tiny gestures, characters suffering for each other's sake or proving their love by anticipating their beloved's needs
- angst -- stoic suffering, repressed misery, tragic collapses followed by worried caretaking, unspoken grief
- domestic atmosphere -- small-scale domesticity, hospitality between enemies or rivals, characters looking after each other, all the gratuitous details that go into running a household/making a home/keeping a business afloat
- religious themes and elements -- religious specificity, religious community and identity, interfaith collaboration and regard, the familiarity of institutional religious practices, dreams and dream interpretation, theology
- revenge, grudges, duels, subterfuge, doing dodgy things on your beloved's behalf
- family relationships and parental baggage -- found family, parental approval and recognition, acknowledging and having lousy family relationships respected
- complicated relationships -- infidelity, polyamory that isn't a closed loop, one-night stands, bitter exes
- in-universe documents -- pastiching historical writing styles, gushy or witty letters, later historians writing papers about requested characters, bonkers in-universe historical debates
- sex plus feelings -- one-night stands with complicated emotions attached, purely sexual relationships leading to unexpected emotional caring and attachments, characters being treated more nicely by sexual partners than they're used to
- 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 villainous character is doing the comforting; cautious or grudging h/c; h/c where power differences, social roles, or personal baggage inhibits the unfettered expression of comfort and characters have to find a workaround.
These ships cover a whole range of dynamics -- avowed enemies, best friends, mentors and proteges -- and possible interpretations, just so long as these characters mean something to each other. I'd love to hear about how these characters impact each other, what they'd do for (or to) one another, what they have in common, what their important differences are, all that good stuff. I'm comfortable with any level of overt romance/sexuality, as long as that state of importance is maintained -- smarm, lifelong partnership, wild repression, casual sex, fucking and sucking til the sun comes up, whatever. If you're interested in writing smut, I love:
- size differences -- stocky people and lean people, tall people and short people, burly people and soft people
- age differences between characters who are already mature adults (by their canon era's terms)
- body worship -- muscles, scars, or all-around reverence for the bod; hand kisses, hair kisses
- frottage, oral, and non-penetrative sex, especially with historical baggage -- mutual masturbation, sodomy workarounds
- clothed/semi-clothed sex, especially when paired with...
- fancy clothes! uniforms, layers, dressing and undressing, OTT descriptions of what people are wearing as integrated into their gettin' busy
- hatesex and fighting-turned-fucking -- belligerent bottoms, exasperated tops, wrestling, duking it out for dominance, verbal bickering getting hot and heavy, characters bickering during sex
- inhibitions and interpersonal baggage in the bedroom -- sexual inexperience, inexperience with same-gender intimacy, internalized homophobia, beautiful and affirming sexual awakenings, mismatched sexual expectations
- anonymous or pseudo-anonymous hookups (especially in semi-public places -- public parks, train compartments, dormitories and barracks)
- sadomasochism: enthusiastic sadists and thrilled masochists, firm but kind doms and capable satisfied subs, switches swapping roles, rough body play
- smoking/sharing cigarettes/cigarette burns (this is my most indulgent of all kinks, it doesn't need to be the center of a fic but I love characters lighting each other's cigarettes or sharing a smoke)
- time-period-specific sexual practices and meeting places -- cruising spots, old-school leather bars, ganymedes and ingles, cottaging, situational homosexuality in single-sex settings leading to Something More(™), shifting and era-specific ideas of gay/queer identities shaping how people bang and view their banging
For the purposes of this exchange, I'd prefer no noncon between my requested pairings; however, noncon involving other characters for the purpose of whump or hurt/comfort, circumstantial consent issues due to altered states or mutual intoxication, or externally-imposed noncon/dubcon where neither requested character is fully responsible for their actions (x-made-them-do-it, sex pollen, fever sex, etc.) are all fine and dandy. Feel free to make whumpy depictions of noncon as indulgent as you like, though, whatever that means for you.
DNW: Self-harm due to psychological distress, eating disorders, child sexual abuse, incest, unrequested teacher/student pairings, omegaverse or BDSMverse AUs, present-day tragedies/current events, Nazism. (Bennett and Judd can mingle with Nazi appeasers and fuck up Nazis’ shit in their canonical capacities as proto-Cambridge Spies, but no reincarnated-as-Nazis stuff or other noncanonical forays into Fascism.) I'd rather not read explicit sex with characters under 16; nonexplicit treatment of underage sex is just fine.
Another Country (1984)
- Guy Bennett/Tommy Judd
(I'm familiar with both the movie and play here; I love both and would love fic incorporating elements of the stage play that didn't make it to the film if that's your cup of tea.)
- Judd survives and the two of them meet again when Bennett's a full-fledged Soviet spy and Judd is the dour yet idealistic leftie politician he's sent to woo into accepting campaign donations with suspiciously red strings attached. Middle-aged boffing ensues.
- Give me Judd suffering for Bennett's sake and both of them being SUPER EMOTIONALLY WEIRD ABOUT IT! Either of them accepting punishment for the other would thrill me but especially stiff-necked Judd, and however his ardently Communistic brain needs to rationalize what he's doing for the sake of his best friend.
On that note, somebody gets caned and is sulky and fucked-up about it until h/c happens, or super indulgent totes-heterosexual h/c after the canonical caning. Bruises and wounds, anger and humiliation, fatigue and pain, regular-degular embarrassment and annoyance, all that good stuff mixed up in grudging tenderness and guilty desire for touch.
- Fic with both of them rebelling against public school bullshit would thrill me, whether that rebellion happens in overt or covert ways -- tiny acts of disobedience and circumvention of the rules, from Judd sneaking out his torch to read after hours to Bennett's illicit love notes, and all imaginable ways of flouting the system. If you choose to take their relationship to the school establishment to a completely different place or just to show them pushing the bounds of what's possible and loving every second of it I would eat it up.
- Either of them gets TRAGICALLY NONCONNED and the other one is righteously pissed off and protective. (I'm open to schoolmasters/other school authority figures as the aggressors here, but I'd prefer anything involving teachers to be painted in a negative light and involve said teacher getting narratively curb-stomped for it, that is the true secret extent of my id.)
- Judd becomes a prefect to save Bennett's skin, without the canonical spanner in the works, and Bennett feels wildly guilty about it while Judd feels wildly guilty about it too. What kind of sneaky reforms does Tommy try to sneak in while knowing just how thin the ice he's on is, and what happens to their relationship as a result of all the bullshit politicking fallout from the death of Martineau? Feel free to pull out all the stops of public-school life tropes.
- Super indulgent bickering discussions of attraction between men and sexual identity, especially if Judd has to backpedal on some of the statements he's made about attraction to men and Bennett has to admit that he's been a little forward vis-a-vis getting Tommy specifically to sleep with him. I love the canonical friction their dynamic around homosexuality causes -- Tommy adamantly hetero and a bit of a horndog, Guy happily playing the field -- and would love anything that leans into that apparent incongruity rather than resolving it easily with "oops, Tommy isn't into women at all and has in fact been into dudes all along". Bisexuality, messy repression, situational homosexuality, complicated gestures of intimacy, and asymmetrical smarm all welcome.
- Epistolary fic — Kremlin dossiers from an AU where Tommy lives long enough for Guy to recruit him? Long-lost interviews? Tommy’s letters to Guy during the war? Five secret schoolboy love notes Guy never sent, and one Tommy did? I love Guy's playful outrageousness and Tommy's haughty rebelliousness/complete dedication to the cause, so I could roll around in their dialogue forever.
The Duellists (1977)
- Gabriel Feraud/Armand D'Hubert
(The Duellists is a film by Ridley Scott adapted from the short story "The Duel" by Joseph Conrad. Whether you choose to reference the Conrad short story or go by movie alone, you're fine.)
- OTT NEMESIS SOULMATES THROUGH THE AGES. I'm a huge fucking sucker for soulmates where that entails being reincarnated together from era to era, and an even bigger sucker when the relationship between those two souls is antagonistic, so go ham putting these two testy peacock-y guys in different eras and centuries.
- HUDDLING FOR WARMTH WITH A DUDE YOU HATE. Come up with ridiculous reasons why these guys have to work together and look out for each other or swap h/c or share a bed and I will eat it up. Any kind of tag-team scheming, whether a canon-type effort to wrangle an escape from undesirable consequences to keep their complicated relationship going or other picaresque adventures, would make me very happy. Or just another damn duel.
- The two of them get proximity cursed and have to stick with each other without killing each other; nonsense ensues. If the two of them still end up beating the stuffing out of each other while they're working out the terms of their curse/proximity soulbond/rare medical condition/whatever, I would be very happy. Or if you feel like getting purely practical with this trope, good old-fashioned "handcuffed together" hijinks would also delight me.
- I love how the two of them are a study in physical contrasts despite being equally flashy Hussar fashion victims -- if you want to write just some down-and-dirty smut, I'd love something where they're both kinking hard on their respective differences, both as an aspect of their long-term rivalry and a coincidental reminder that wow, in fact they are wildly into one another's physical type.
- Historical document fic where a scholar of Napoleonic masculinities or something makes a shocking discovery in the collected D’Hubert family papers or tries to piece back together the timeline of all these damned duels from Feraud's later memoirs and how exactly it's supposed to square with the accepted historical report that at some point these dudes banged or something.
This is id so purely distilled that I have no idea how to turn it into a fic prompt: legs. Just legs. This film is a cinematic ode to hot guys' powerful thighs in tight pants and I just want those thighs to get some love and some action.
Early 19th century politics + class differences + all the weird flourishes and formalities of wartime gallantry -- I don't understand a goddamn thing about the Napoleonic military so if you do, or if you can even semi-fake it, I will be thrilled and fascinated. If you're worried about not getting every speck of shiny gold braid absolutely rigorously historically accurate… I totally don't care, I'm just here for the passionately manly novelistic nonsense that the film's setting and Conrad's story both bring to the table. I'd especially love Feraud's POV on D'Hubert's final gestures toward him.
- External POV on their rivalry from fellow officers, higher-ups, salon gossips -- Conrad's The Duel suggests that their contemporaries in Madame de Lionne's circle speculate playfully about the origin of this spontaneously-emerging grudge between two such young and dashing dudes, but do any of them chance to hit on some deeper truths by mistake while they're spitballing?
Wolf Hall (series) - Hilary Mantel
- Thomas Cromwell/Thomas Wolsey
(I'm familiar with both the TV series and the book series here, but for the purpose of fic would prefer Cromwell looking like his book self, i.e. like he's going to murder you in a dark alley.)
- This is a ship I am head over heels for due to the sheer EMOTIONS of it all, and anything you write that facilitates those emotions (even if they're under Cromwell lockdown and even if they never amount to anything tangible) is all-in. I'd love Wolsey's POV on what makes Cromwell's brain work or more of Cromwell's polite overlooking of his master's flaws in return for Wolsey's genuine feeling toward him. I'm also really wildly into the fact that they're both seen a lot of the world by the time they get to know each other and by the time the events of the first novel take place are unquestionably grownass men of significant bodily mass -- anything that revels in them being strong personalities with a faintly flirty rapport that nobody could mistake for virginal spring chickens is good.
- Okay, the fic I want that is in fact so iddy for me that I blush at requesting it in an explicitly idfic-oriented exchange: I headcanon the shit out of Cromwell having done a little sex work during his time as a young man abroad, all very pragmatic and rough trade-y, and I have no idea how that would tie this pairing as a pairing but I'd love Wolsey finding out and quietly mentally filing that away under Things He Knows About Thomas + Cromwell being oddly touched about the acceptance of something he hadn't really considered feeling remotely bad about up until that point.
- This seems like a pairing cut out for mutual pining if for no other reason than that they genuinely do need each other (at least at first) and know exactly how such an emotional curveball would complicate their already complicated relationship. Both of them feeling more than professional feelings for each other but keeping them locked down out of the belief that such a thing is vaguely ridiculous in addition to impolitic, and eventually it comes out anyway -- or doesn't, I'm happy.
- Anything with Cromwell happily functioning as Wolsey's minion would make me very happy. Managing domestic matters, fielding clusterfucks, getting petty or not-so-petty revenge, all of it is perfectly swoony, and if there's h/c over headache-worthy political complications (especially the first rumblings of Henry's Bullshit Matter) or one of them having to crack some skulls for the sake of the other I will be very happy.
- Outside POV on their relationship -- what kind of scurrilous rumors are circulating? Does anyone catch on for real, and what's the fate of the unlucky person who sticks their nose in where it's not wanted? I'd prefer no actual public outing/dire consequences that are unambiguously Sodomy Consequences, but both characters having an appropriate sense of late-medieval attitudes is fine and dandy.
- Cromwell encounters Wolsey in another dream (vision? hallucination?) and is left rationalizing it to himself. Or vice-versa, with Wolsey getting a (deathbed?) visitation from his favorite hench-Cromwell. I'm a sucker for meaningful late medieval/Early Modern dream symbolism and interpretation, and I also enjoy the trope of for characters (seemingly) sharing the same dreamscapes and temporarily inhabiting the same pocket of time and space.
- Crom and Wolsey in the afterlife, being surly about Henry’s continued goings-on on the land of the living. Assuming book 3 doesn't throw any major historical divergence in the works, Cromwell is going to bite it -- what does Wolsey make of how he's been avenged?
- Post-Tudor, pre-1990 real-world AU of your choice where Cromwell is still Wolsey’s disreputable ace in the hole and nobody knows quite what the reasons are for the hold he has over Wolsey — I’d love a British politics AU if you can somehow swing that but if you can’t I’d love really any transposition of Henry’s little matter into another milieu. (Sports? The arts? I love how Mantel depicts King Henry's creepingly ghastly personality and would be happy to read about the novel's political players in any other setting too.)
Given the nature of this exchange, I'm going to open up the floodgates for whatever formats, genres, tropes, etc. happen to float a writer's particular boat -- feel free to include other unrequested characters, mentions of other ships, unusual formats, stealth crossovers, links to outfits in the author's notes, moodboards, Some general things I dig:
- historical details, material culture, pop culture -- indulgent descriptions of garments and outfits, furniture and textiles, perfumes and fragrance. I love the material details of life in all of these canons' settings, but I'm always a huge sucker for descriptions of the world of smell, whether that's sweaty duelist armpits or a surprise whiff of clove pomade or the smell of clothes kept boxed up for storage with herbs for pest control.
- allegiances and loyalty (especially loyalty kink!) -- grand gestures, tiny gestures, characters suffering for each other's sake or proving their love by anticipating their beloved's needs
- angst -- stoic suffering, repressed misery, tragic collapses followed by worried caretaking, unspoken grief
- domestic atmosphere -- small-scale domesticity, hospitality between enemies or rivals, characters looking after each other, all the gratuitous details that go into running a household/making a home/keeping a business afloat
- religious themes and elements -- religious specificity, religious community and identity, interfaith collaboration and regard, the familiarity of institutional religious practices, dreams and dream interpretation, theology
- revenge, grudges, duels, subterfuge, doing dodgy things on your beloved's behalf
- family relationships and parental baggage -- found family, parental approval and recognition, acknowledging and having lousy family relationships respected
- complicated relationships -- infidelity, polyamory that isn't a closed loop, one-night stands, bitter exes
- in-universe documents -- pastiching historical writing styles, gushy or witty letters, later historians writing papers about requested characters, bonkers in-universe historical debates
- sex plus feelings -- one-night stands with complicated emotions attached, purely sexual relationships leading to unexpected emotional caring and attachments, characters being treated more nicely by sexual partners than they're used to
- 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 villainous character is doing the comforting; cautious or grudging h/c; h/c where power differences, social roles, or personal baggage inhibits the unfettered expression of comfort and characters have to find a workaround.
These ships cover a whole range of dynamics -- avowed enemies, best friends, mentors and proteges -- and possible interpretations, just so long as these characters mean something to each other. I'd love to hear about how these characters impact each other, what they'd do for (or to) one another, what they have in common, what their important differences are, all that good stuff. I'm comfortable with any level of overt romance/sexuality, as long as that state of importance is maintained -- smarm, lifelong partnership, wild repression, casual sex, fucking and sucking til the sun comes up, whatever. If you're interested in writing smut, I love:
- size differences -- stocky people and lean people, tall people and short people, burly people and soft people
- age differences between characters who are already mature adults (by their canon era's terms)
- body worship -- muscles, scars, or all-around reverence for the bod; hand kisses, hair kisses
- frottage, oral, and non-penetrative sex, especially with historical baggage -- mutual masturbation, sodomy workarounds
- clothed/semi-clothed sex, especially when paired with...
- fancy clothes! uniforms, layers, dressing and undressing, OTT descriptions of what people are wearing as integrated into their gettin' busy
- hatesex and fighting-turned-fucking -- belligerent bottoms, exasperated tops, wrestling, duking it out for dominance, verbal bickering getting hot and heavy, characters bickering during sex
- inhibitions and interpersonal baggage in the bedroom -- sexual inexperience, inexperience with same-gender intimacy, internalized homophobia, beautiful and affirming sexual awakenings, mismatched sexual expectations
- anonymous or pseudo-anonymous hookups (especially in semi-public places -- public parks, train compartments, dormitories and barracks)
- sadomasochism: enthusiastic sadists and thrilled masochists, firm but kind doms and capable satisfied subs, switches swapping roles, rough body play
- smoking/sharing cigarettes/cigarette burns (this is my most indulgent of all kinks, it doesn't need to be the center of a fic but I love characters lighting each other's cigarettes or sharing a smoke)
- time-period-specific sexual practices and meeting places -- cruising spots, old-school leather bars, ganymedes and ingles, cottaging, situational homosexuality in single-sex settings leading to Something More(™), shifting and era-specific ideas of gay/queer identities shaping how people bang and view their banging
For the purposes of this exchange, I'd prefer no noncon between my requested pairings; however, noncon involving other characters for the purpose of whump or hurt/comfort, circumstantial consent issues due to altered states or mutual intoxication, or externally-imposed noncon/dubcon where neither requested character is fully responsible for their actions (x-made-them-do-it, sex pollen, fever sex, etc.) are all fine and dandy. Feel free to make whumpy depictions of noncon as indulgent as you like, though, whatever that means for you.
DNW: Self-harm due to psychological distress, eating disorders, child sexual abuse, incest, unrequested teacher/student pairings, omegaverse or BDSMverse AUs, present-day tragedies/current events, Nazism. (Bennett and Judd can mingle with Nazi appeasers and fuck up Nazis’ shit in their canonical capacities as proto-Cambridge Spies, but no reincarnated-as-Nazis stuff or other noncanonical forays into Fascism.) I'd rather not read explicit sex with characters under 16; nonexplicit treatment of underage sex is just fine.
Another Country (1984)
- Guy Bennett/Tommy Judd
(I'm familiar with both the movie and play here; I love both and would love fic incorporating elements of the stage play that didn't make it to the film if that's your cup of tea.)
• Loyalty - Characters Repeatedly Choose Each Other Over Everyone Else • Loyalty Kink - Loyalty to a Person Leads to Even Greater Loyalty to Their Cause • Loyalty Kink • Loyalty Kink - Risking Self for Someone • Character Accepts Corporal Punishment for Another's Sake • Service Kink • Banter - Character Development Through Conversation • Characters Throw off Shame About Relationship • Fake Dating - a Dates B to Cover up Secret Relationship With C and Starts Falling for B Instead • Fake/Pretend Relationship • First Time - First Time With Partner of the Same Gender • Historical Gay Subcultures & Meeting Places • Reluctant Attraction -- Same-Gender Attraction After Professing Straightness • Caning • Internalized Homophobia • Epistolary • Screaming Match Leads to Sex • Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies • Uniform Kink • Lavish Descriptions of Historical Clothing
- Judd survives and the two of them meet again when Bennett's a full-fledged Soviet spy and Judd is the dour yet idealistic leftie politician he's sent to woo into accepting campaign donations with suspiciously red strings attached. Middle-aged boffing ensues.
- Give me Judd suffering for Bennett's sake and both of them being SUPER EMOTIONALLY WEIRD ABOUT IT! Either of them accepting punishment for the other would thrill me but especially stiff-necked Judd, and however his ardently Communistic brain needs to rationalize what he's doing for the sake of his best friend.
On that note, somebody gets caned and is sulky and fucked-up about it until h/c happens, or super indulgent totes-heterosexual h/c after the canonical caning. Bruises and wounds, anger and humiliation, fatigue and pain, regular-degular embarrassment and annoyance, all that good stuff mixed up in grudging tenderness and guilty desire for touch.
- Fic with both of them rebelling against public school bullshit would thrill me, whether that rebellion happens in overt or covert ways -- tiny acts of disobedience and circumvention of the rules, from Judd sneaking out his torch to read after hours to Bennett's illicit love notes, and all imaginable ways of flouting the system. If you choose to take their relationship to the school establishment to a completely different place or just to show them pushing the bounds of what's possible and loving every second of it I would eat it up.
- Either of them gets TRAGICALLY NONCONNED and the other one is righteously pissed off and protective. (I'm open to schoolmasters/other school authority figures as the aggressors here, but I'd prefer anything involving teachers to be painted in a negative light and involve said teacher getting narratively curb-stomped for it, that is the true secret extent of my id.)
- Judd becomes a prefect to save Bennett's skin, without the canonical spanner in the works, and Bennett feels wildly guilty about it while Judd feels wildly guilty about it too. What kind of sneaky reforms does Tommy try to sneak in while knowing just how thin the ice he's on is, and what happens to their relationship as a result of all the bullshit politicking fallout from the death of Martineau? Feel free to pull out all the stops of public-school life tropes.
- Super indulgent bickering discussions of attraction between men and sexual identity, especially if Judd has to backpedal on some of the statements he's made about attraction to men and Bennett has to admit that he's been a little forward vis-a-vis getting Tommy specifically to sleep with him. I love the canonical friction their dynamic around homosexuality causes -- Tommy adamantly hetero and a bit of a horndog, Guy happily playing the field -- and would love anything that leans into that apparent incongruity rather than resolving it easily with "oops, Tommy isn't into women at all and has in fact been into dudes all along". Bisexuality, messy repression, situational homosexuality, complicated gestures of intimacy, and asymmetrical smarm all welcome.
- Epistolary fic — Kremlin dossiers from an AU where Tommy lives long enough for Guy to recruit him? Long-lost interviews? Tommy’s letters to Guy during the war? Five secret schoolboy love notes Guy never sent, and one Tommy did? I love Guy's playful outrageousness and Tommy's haughty rebelliousness/complete dedication to the cause, so I could roll around in their dialogue forever.
The Duellists (1977)
- Gabriel Feraud/Armand D'Hubert
(The Duellists is a film by Ridley Scott adapted from the short story "The Duel" by Joseph Conrad. Whether you choose to reference the Conrad short story or go by movie alone, you're fine.)
• Telepathy - Forced Proximity Where They Have to Stay Close Together • Soulmates - Soulmates With Their Nemesis • Enemies to Lovers - Reincarnated Nemeses Throughout the Centuries • Lavish Descriptions of Historical Clothing • Sharing Clothes • Huddling for Warmth • Manhandling • Epistolary • Reluctant Attraction - Develops While Forced to Work Together • Reluctant Attraction - Sexual Attraction to Someone They (Should) Dislike • Time Loop • Trapped Together - Snowed in • Uniform Kink
- OTT NEMESIS SOULMATES THROUGH THE AGES. I'm a huge fucking sucker for soulmates where that entails being reincarnated together from era to era, and an even bigger sucker when the relationship between those two souls is antagonistic, so go ham putting these two testy peacock-y guys in different eras and centuries.
- HUDDLING FOR WARMTH WITH A DUDE YOU HATE. Come up with ridiculous reasons why these guys have to work together and look out for each other or swap h/c or share a bed and I will eat it up. Any kind of tag-team scheming, whether a canon-type effort to wrangle an escape from undesirable consequences to keep their complicated relationship going or other picaresque adventures, would make me very happy. Or just another damn duel.
- The two of them get proximity cursed and have to stick with each other without killing each other; nonsense ensues. If the two of them still end up beating the stuffing out of each other while they're working out the terms of their curse/proximity soulbond/rare medical condition/whatever, I would be very happy. Or if you feel like getting purely practical with this trope, good old-fashioned "handcuffed together" hijinks would also delight me.
- I love how the two of them are a study in physical contrasts despite being equally flashy Hussar fashion victims -- if you want to write just some down-and-dirty smut, I'd love something where they're both kinking hard on their respective differences, both as an aspect of their long-term rivalry and a coincidental reminder that wow, in fact they are wildly into one another's physical type.
- Historical document fic where a scholar of Napoleonic masculinities or something makes a shocking discovery in the collected D’Hubert family papers or tries to piece back together the timeline of all these damned duels from Feraud's later memoirs and how exactly it's supposed to square with the accepted historical report that at some point these dudes banged or something.
This is id so purely distilled that I have no idea how to turn it into a fic prompt: legs. Just legs. This film is a cinematic ode to hot guys' powerful thighs in tight pants and I just want those thighs to get some love and some action.
Early 19th century politics + class differences + all the weird flourishes and formalities of wartime gallantry -- I don't understand a goddamn thing about the Napoleonic military so if you do, or if you can even semi-fake it, I will be thrilled and fascinated. If you're worried about not getting every speck of shiny gold braid absolutely rigorously historically accurate… I totally don't care, I'm just here for the passionately manly novelistic nonsense that the film's setting and Conrad's story both bring to the table. I'd especially love Feraud's POV on D'Hubert's final gestures toward him.
- External POV on their rivalry from fellow officers, higher-ups, salon gossips -- Conrad's The Duel suggests that their contemporaries in Madame de Lionne's circle speculate playfully about the origin of this spontaneously-emerging grudge between two such young and dashing dudes, but do any of them chance to hit on some deeper truths by mistake while they're spitballing?
Wolf Hall (series) - Hilary Mantel
- Thomas Cromwell/Thomas Wolsey
(I'm familiar with both the TV series and the book series here, but for the purpose of fic would prefer Cromwell looking like his book self, i.e. like he's going to murder you in a dark alley.)
• Loyalty Kink • Loyalty Kink - Risking Self for Someone • Mentor/Protegé[E] • Power Imbalance - Powerful Char Worries That Relationship Isn’t Consensual (It Is) • Character Is Former Sex Worker • Epistolary • Pining - Denial of Feelings Even Though It's Very Obvious • Pining - Mutual Pining • Competence - Highly Effective Teamwork • Competence Kink - Different Skills Complementing Each Other • Lavish Descriptions of Historical Clothing • Age Difference - Younger Character Tops • Dreams - Prophetic Dreams • Dreams - Dream Imagery and Symbolism• Dreams - Dreamsharing
- This is a ship I am head over heels for due to the sheer EMOTIONS of it all, and anything you write that facilitates those emotions (even if they're under Cromwell lockdown and even if they never amount to anything tangible) is all-in. I'd love Wolsey's POV on what makes Cromwell's brain work or more of Cromwell's polite overlooking of his master's flaws in return for Wolsey's genuine feeling toward him. I'm also really wildly into the fact that they're both seen a lot of the world by the time they get to know each other and by the time the events of the first novel take place are unquestionably grownass men of significant bodily mass -- anything that revels in them being strong personalities with a faintly flirty rapport that nobody could mistake for virginal spring chickens is good.
- Okay, the fic I want that is in fact so iddy for me that I blush at requesting it in an explicitly idfic-oriented exchange: I headcanon the shit out of Cromwell having done a little sex work during his time as a young man abroad, all very pragmatic and rough trade-y, and I have no idea how that would tie this pairing as a pairing but I'd love Wolsey finding out and quietly mentally filing that away under Things He Knows About Thomas + Cromwell being oddly touched about the acceptance of something he hadn't really considered feeling remotely bad about up until that point.
- This seems like a pairing cut out for mutual pining if for no other reason than that they genuinely do need each other (at least at first) and know exactly how such an emotional curveball would complicate their already complicated relationship. Both of them feeling more than professional feelings for each other but keeping them locked down out of the belief that such a thing is vaguely ridiculous in addition to impolitic, and eventually it comes out anyway -- or doesn't, I'm happy.
- Anything with Cromwell happily functioning as Wolsey's minion would make me very happy. Managing domestic matters, fielding clusterfucks, getting petty or not-so-petty revenge, all of it is perfectly swoony, and if there's h/c over headache-worthy political complications (especially the first rumblings of Henry's Bullshit Matter) or one of them having to crack some skulls for the sake of the other I will be very happy.
- Outside POV on their relationship -- what kind of scurrilous rumors are circulating? Does anyone catch on for real, and what's the fate of the unlucky person who sticks their nose in where it's not wanted? I'd prefer no actual public outing/dire consequences that are unambiguously Sodomy Consequences, but both characters having an appropriate sense of late-medieval attitudes is fine and dandy.
- Cromwell encounters Wolsey in another dream (vision? hallucination?) and is left rationalizing it to himself. Or vice-versa, with Wolsey getting a (deathbed?) visitation from his favorite hench-Cromwell. I'm a sucker for meaningful late medieval/Early Modern dream symbolism and interpretation, and I also enjoy the trope of for characters (seemingly) sharing the same dreamscapes and temporarily inhabiting the same pocket of time and space.
- Crom and Wolsey in the afterlife, being surly about Henry’s continued goings-on on the land of the living. Assuming book 3 doesn't throw any major historical divergence in the works, Cromwell is going to bite it -- what does Wolsey make of how he's been avenged?
- Post-Tudor, pre-1990 real-world AU of your choice where Cromwell is still Wolsey’s disreputable ace in the hole and nobody knows quite what the reasons are for the hold he has over Wolsey — I’d love a British politics AU if you can somehow swing that but if you can’t I’d love really any transposition of Henry’s little matter into another milieu. (Sports? The arts? I love how Mantel depicts King Henry's creepingly ghastly personality and would be happy to read about the novel's political players in any other setting too.)
