Rare Male Slash Exchange 2022 letter
May. 19th, 2022 04:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skazkaOnce again, it is time for me to talk way too much about pairings that are way too small.
Likes:
- historical details, material culture, pop culture for the era the fic is set in, historical politics (feel free to pick and choose, embroider, and ignore historical reality as desired, especially for fandoms like Trust and Rome where deliberate historical divergence is the name of the game in canon)
- allegiances and loyalty (especially loyalty kink!)
- dreams and nightmares (dream sex and dream symbolism are both a+)
- trauma and PTSD, memory and personal baggage, literal and metaphorical haunting
- friends-to-lovers, enemies-to-lovers-while-remaining-enemies
- pining both reciprocated and unreciprocated
- hurt/comfort: post-whump h/c, battle aftermath, h/c where a powerful/prickly/difficult person is the recipient of the comfort whether they like it or not, h/c where a villain is doing the comforting (for mindfucky sinister reasons or otherwise), h/c where the 'hurt' is embarrassing or a chronic condition with no easy fix
- sex happening before feelings and then feelings show up to the party and make everything weird: characters in denial about their developing feelings, or reluctantly finding themselves feeling something real
- bulletproof loyalty, whether or not it's deserved, and all kinds of loyalty kink
- pet sociopaths -- morally fucky characters doing heinous ruthless things for the one they love, with or without their permission
- infidelity -- guilt, rationalizations, the thrill of the forbidden
- open relationships/background relationships
- all different kinds of historical/genre AUs. Film noir AUs, theater company AUs, 70s horror movie AUs, AUs setting canon in the 1980s corporate world or the English Regency -- any high-concept AU you want to write I want to read.
Side pairings, background pairings, and unrequested characters are all welcome. The prompts I list below are definitely not comprehensive or hard-and-fast -- if nothing here inspires you or if you're inspired to mix and match or write a role-reversal of something I've laid out feel free. I’ve got plenty of smut prompts but I will hugely enjoy anything you write me on any level of explicitness, and I also love pairings that go completely unconsummated.
Smut Likes:
- size differences
- age differences
- aggressive inexperienced characters
- body worship -- scars, hands, body hair, muscles
- blowjobs, handjobs, frottage, intercrural and non-penetrative sex
- clothed/semi-clothed sex, or where only one party is naked
- fancy clothes, uniforms, layers, dressing and undressing
- hatesex and fighting-turned-fucking, arguments, verbal abuse, insults, physical roughhousing and wrestling
- erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation
- breathplay, choking
- cuddlefucking, lazy sex, affectionate post-sex hangouts, pillow talk
- inhibitions and interpersonal baggage in the bedroom
- anonymous or pseudo-anonymous hookups
- sex that's both clumsy/painful and tender
- wound fingering, wound fucking, kinking on the pain and power involved in historical medicine
- rope bondage
- caning and flogging
- characters with physical imperfections (scars, bad joints, body parts that won't necessarily cooperate)
- characters seeking sex for comfort (whether or not they find it)
- sadomasochism, pain, rough body play -- grabbing/shoving/yanking/hitting/punching/etc.
- smoking, sharing cigarettes, cigarette burns
- drug and alcohol use (relaxation and altered states of consciousness during sex as well as substance abuse and dependency)
- time-period-specific sexual practices and meeting places
- head-shaving or hair-cutting, especially nonconsensual/dubiously consensual or degrading/clinical hair-cutting -- I don't know how to work this into any of my fandoms but if you'd like to write it I'd love to read it.
- noncon and dubcon -- especially fucked-up sexual bargaining, villains menacing protagonists, dark!protagonists menacing villains, antagonistic characters mutually attempting to dubcon one another, and anything where the focus is on emotional conflict and distress.
I'm not specifically requesting art this year, but if you feel a visual treat coming on I would love to receive it. I have art likes here in my Chocolate Box letter this year
DNWs: Self-injury or eating disorders due to psychological distress; unrequested incest or child sexual abuse; school or teacher/student AUs; pregnancy; omegaverse/BDSMverse AUs; focus on coming-out or gender transition; noncon with trans victims; urban fantasy werewolf tropes like packs and alphas; scat; OTK spanking. I'd rather not read explicit sex with characters younger than 16.
Feel free to deal thematically with Baron Harkonnen’s canonical sexual abuse of boys and his attraction to Paul and Feyd-Rautha for Dune; likewise feel free to deal with canonical levels of incest and underage sexual experience in Trust and Rome. Feel free to mention Ginsberg’s missing nipple but I’d prefer no focus on him cutting it or anything else off.
*
3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Ben Wade/Charlie Prince
- How did Charlie end up in Ben’s gang to begin with? How long’s he been trailing after Wade with the most unsubtle stars in his eyes? What were their respective first impressions of one another? Ben seems like the consummate cool customer as far as leaders go, but Charlie always seems to be just this side of flying off the handle even when his boss isn’t in peril — how did he earn his place as Wade’s de facto lieutenant, and why does Ben tolerate him?
- Any kind of dealing with injury/illness/inclement conditions together, either as part of the bigger gang or caught out alone/separated and trying to reunite. Does Charlie go and get himself injured in the course of trying to do something valiant on Wade’s behalf? What about when it’s the boss who’s injured?
- I’m really interested in the various ways age and experience are played with in this movie — adolescent William both starstruck with outlawry and queasily fascinated by the taking of human life, Ben Wade’s account of starting his gang off in Leadville as a motherless boy not much older — and I’d love any kind of AU where these two’s relative ages are adjusted, whether it’s teenage budding outlaw Wade falling in with an equally teenaged and tempestuous Prince or either one of them as grown men dealing with a teenaged version of the other. (Though a teenaged Charlie Prince with all the admiration for outlaw life and none of the experience sounds like a real powder keg.)
- Charlie seems to be almost as protective of Ben Wade’s glamorous criminal reputation as he is of the man himself, especially in the screenplay where he clearly expects others to respect what Wade’s name signifies (and the near-fetishization of his famous gun) — what does Wade himself make of that when they’re alone together? How aware is he of Charlie’s feelings?
- On the flipside, Charlie Prince is at rock bottom an arrogant, vicious, trigger-happy dickhead and I love it so much — feel free to whump him, rough him up, make him suffer, or have Wade firmly but painfully rein him in from his more reckless tendencies. Even the boss must get tired of him sometimes and as much as I love the loyalty kink/villain-henchman dynamic they’ve got going on I would love anything where a noncon/dubcon element muddies the waters even more.
Fandom-specific smut: Huddling for warmth/bedroll-sharing; loyalty kink; eye contact during sex; intercrural sex; service kink; gun kink, both in the usual sense of gunplay (sex at gunpoint, penetration with a gun, etc.) and in the sense of guns-as-objects-of-desire. (The Hand of God does look awfully pretty, and it’s not like Westerns don’t have a rich track record of homoerotic “btw the gun is my penis” imagery.)
*
Dune Series - Frank Herbert
Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen/Paul Atreides
- Something working in the framework of arranged marriage, Bene Gesserit-engineered mating, or kanly — is there some obscure clause in the dictates of the Great Convention that could put these two into contact with each other in a non-stabby context? If you feel the inclination to explore a transmasculine take on Paul Atreides (or Feyd, for that matter) I would be happy to read it.
- Any kind of culture clash between the norms of their respective houses, with fucky space politics and maneuvering. Or a role reversal where Paul is the murder teen engineered for destruction by the dastardly Duke Leto and his bloodthirsty concubine, and Feyd-Rautha is… maybe just as terrible but at least not alone in that? Raised in a wholesome honorable environment by an uncle who doesn’t openly want to fuck him? Who knows!
- Paul getting haunted by Feyd’s ghost, or just hassled by his unwanted ghola. Or anything else exploring the blurred edge between the supernatural and the scientific in this series. Dream-sharing, astral projection, prophecies, premonitions, it’s all delicious to me.
- Either one of them as the other one’s unwanted concubine, prisoner, or hostage. Feyd-Rautha as hostage among the Fremen? Paul as a nonconsenting VIP on Giedi Prime? Fucked-up Baron machinations optional but delightful.
- This is deeply self-indulgent but I don’t care: Paul is a slightly uptight virgin during much of the timeframe of the first book and remains a strict one-Chani guy until he fucks off into the desert, while Feyd-Rautha is absolutely not a virgin and has been immersed in hugely fucked-up Harkonnen sexual norms for his entire life. Something with those two extremes meeting for great angst, casual noncon, or anything else, please.
Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen/Baron Vladimir Harkonnen
If only I could say this was my only problematic dysfunctional royal family incest pairing… but it 100% is not because that dynamic is my forever catnip and these two with their fantastically wack dynamic are grade-A. I love the interconnected interests that bind them together, saturated in a generous cocktail of inappropriate desire, disgust, contempt, and extremely justified suspicion — the Baron is doing something purposeful by purposefully grooming Feyd-Rautha for power and lining him up to take an important place, but Feyd is less than patient with that plan, and why should he be?
- It’s not an uncommon reading of their relationship to read the Baron’s obvious desire for his nephew as unconsummated — if so, why? Besides the more obviously lethal quality of at least some of the Baron’s sexual encounters, what does he think he’s doing to Feyd-Rautha by not bothering to conceal his attraction but also conspicuously not forcing him any further than he does? How conscious is Feyd-Rautha of that, and does he ever try to strike a different kind of bargain?
- The Baron’s punishment for Feyd-Rautha’s poison-needle assassination attempt develops a sexual angle, either on top of forcing Feyd to kill his concubines or parallel to it. I really love how despite his protests Feyd-Rautha is well aware he has no real choice in the matter of how his uncle reacts to the murder attempt and that he’s lucky to be getting out alive, but it certainly
- Feyd-Rautha survives as a prisoner but the Baron figuratively or literally haunts the fuck out of him. Vladimir Harkonnen hassling Alia from beyond the grave relies on another type of mechanism than conventional haunting, but I love it so much, and if you want to echo or parallel that go wild.
- More bouts of mutual backstabbing and treachery — what’s more erotic than treachery? Resentment, scheming, arrogance, gloating, bad blood, public displays of favor and allegiance motivated by weird petty angling… I want it all.
- Sex pollen: both of them getting hit by it and being pissed-off and schemey about it during and afterward, even as they’re driven by forces beyond their control. I just want a weird roiling sea of mutual distrust, asymmetrical desire, and loathing here, and also I think Dune sex pollen would be funny.
Fandom-specific smut likes: body contrasts (I am really partial to brown-skinned, short, wiry Paul in contrast to buff pretty-boy Feyd, and anything recalling that the Baron was a big man even before he grew fat); OTT space luxury in the bedroom; physical violence; fighting turns to fucking; any incorporation of Paul’s terrible purpose(tm) or kwisatz haderach aspects during intimacy; Feyd-Rautha being weird and cynical and suspicious about sex; Paul being a sheltered virgin despite his BG training; coitus reservatus; mutual sexual exploration; deflowering; edging; mindfucks in the boudoir; Dune-fandom-typical philosophical and tactical interior monologues during sex.
*
Mad Men
Michael Ginsberg/Sal Romano
- If you've ever wanted to write the early-1970s leather AU for Mad Men fandom, follow your dreams -- all the protocol and meeting-places and fetishization of materials are super hot and I love the thought of exploring canon's themes of shadowy pursuits and secret desires in the context of gettin' dicked. I’d also love anything else exploring other era-specific scenes and communities through Mad Men’s lens of marketing, media messaging, and what people desire or think they desire to make them happy — film, music, publishing, porn.
- Sal Romano illustrates gay porn, Michael Ginsberg is his biggest fan. Alternately, Michael Ginsberg is writing smutty gay pulps for a living and Sal Romano is his biggest fan. I’d love anything exploring both the queer smutty landscape of vintage gay media of the late 1960s/early 1970s, and the ways in which it’s a business proposition governed by market pressures and public demand.
- Sal and Ginsberg meet post-canon in the context of gay activism. This is peak self-indulgence for me because I love gay history but it’s one of the rapidly developing areas of American culture that Mad Men doesn’t touch too much — I’d love to see these two crossing paths in that context despite their different social and cultural backgrounds and the difference in their ages/life stages, either 1970s-style gay liberation and zaps or much later organizing in response to the AIDS crisis.
- I'm always intrigued by Ginsberg's Cinderella pitch, which seems so shadowy and fraught and full of subtext about sex and fear and pursuit -- anything incorporating that kind of dark hunted motif even with consensual sex and someone incredibly hunky would be super hot. On the flipside, the context we see Sal cruising in is really dark and fraught with themes of infidelity/the disconnect between his closeted daytime life and what he'd really rather be doing, and I'd love anything where that's central to the filth.
- Something where Sal comes back to SC&P in Don's absence and it sends Ginsberg's gay paranoia into overdrive. Or on a happier note, Sal meeting Michael's father, or Michael self-actualizing his sexuality a little with Sal's help and vice versa -- Sal sort of gets the shaft in a narrative sense and he's in the closet out of necessity but he definitely seems to know himself and to like himself in a way that might blow Ginsberg's mind.
Bonus porn prompts: cruising, sexual fantasy, anonymous sex, Sal giving blowjobs, virginity loss.
*
HBO’s Rome
Julius Caesar/Octavian
- Atia's readiness to believe that her teenage son shrewdly seduced his great-uncle for political gain is sure something and her pushiness about it cracks me the fuck up every time -- so what if Octavian decides to mess with her head and her expectations of what that relationship would look like? Does he take advantage of new latitude as a supposed lover, to political ends or personal ones, or just get a kick out of people thinking he has Caesar's special attention? If you choose to take things a counterhistorical/counter-canonical direction with Caesar's assassination, I'd love something where Octavian tries to take the lead in Caesar's defense and Caesar is appreciative but confounded.
- I love the scene in 1x10 where Octavian anoints Caesar with blood before his triumph, and I'd love more scenes of them interacting in that kind of ambiguous state where Octavian is acting from his position of religious authority and Caesar is nominally submitting to him. What's that like for a man with Caesar's track record of achievements? I'd love any fic that deals with Roman state religion, Octavian's skeptical deism, Caesar's history with symbols and omens, astronomy, haruspexy, dream interpretation, really any of it. (All the weird blood stuff in the triumph preparation scene is also wildly sexy, so take that wherever you want.)
- How does Caesar see Octavian's more cold-blooded/borderline antisocial traits? His approach to politics is pretty different from his eventual heir's, but I'd love anything where the two of them size one another up, or where Caesar reflects on Octavian's appetite for ruthlessness, whether it elicits admiration or unease. (Or both!) The series really showcases the mindfucks Caesar's capable of through judicious employment of mercy and forgiveness -- does that work as well with Octavian when he's feeling nervy?
- Octavian wants to top Caesar, Caesar is keenly aware of why this is Not The Thing… but they figure it out. Roman sexual hangups are my kryptonite, especially as they dovetail with the complicated balances of real-life power between these two and their associates; feel free to make the full spectrum of Roman sex hangups take center stage here. (Or omit them as an area of focus, if that's not your speed, though I'd prefer no ahistorically well-adjusted sexual norms.)
- Octavian isn't great in canon at keeping the secret of Caesar's epilepsy -- though with a family like that, secrets seem hard to maintain -- but I'd love something where he's a bit better at keeping that specific element under wraps, and Caesar is a little grateful, or where his slightly more skeptical take on the interference of gods in the lives of mortals prompts him to take a different tack with an illness that's the supposed product of divine judgment.
Mark Antony/Octavian
- Some scenario where Antony and Octavian are both separately persuaded it's in their best interest to make up… at least for the time being… and have to pretend they're on cordial terms at a dinner party/in public/in front of the Senate/in front of their troops/in front of Cleopatra. Basically fake dating without the dating. Cue ancient Roman gay chicken, hatesex behind the scenes at a social/public/religious event and then having to go back and pretend to be amiable, etc.
- Both of them processing some fucked-up feelings after the death of Caesar, for a rare moment where the immediate fallout of Caesar's literal and metaphorical inheritance isn't getting in the way. Alternately, a fic where Antony is among Caesar's assassins, and the politics get messy.
- If you just want to write more of Antony kicking the shit out of Octavian, I would be very happy. (Octavian managing to kick the shit out of Antony is also very welcome, especially in ways that hurt his pride.) """"Playful"""" sparring gets serious, impromptu rough body play during sex, fighting turning into fucking or "don't look at my boner while we fight!" denial as they both get off on mistreating one another -- listen, I'm sorry, but all the choking in light of Octavian's canon kinks… yeah.
- Fucked up consent issues going every which way! Antony thinks he's dubconning Octavian, Octavian thinks he's dubconning Antony, both of them are right. I love many flavors of dubcon (as evidenced by that way-too-long list up there) and would be happy to read any situation you can contrive to put these guys into.
- Something set during Lupercalia -- the historical Antony seems to have been involved in the festival in some capacity (cf. the whole "offering Caesar a crown" thing) and the tone of those festivities seems like a great backdrop for all hell to break loose. In-group politics, major event-planning logistics, teeth-gritting social niceties while Octavian and Antony are at each other's throats, or just boning down while undergoing ritual purification.
Fandom-specific smut likes: facefucking/anything with outrageous Roman hangups about oral sex and the mouth; Octavian getting sex-choked/slapped; Octavian doing the sex-choking/face-slapping; Octavian as an awfully pretty sadomasochist top; rough body play; intercrural sex; fucking in the spoons position.
DNW notes: This fandom gets some wiggle room on my normal guidelines regarding explicit underage sex since the timeline of canon compresses historical events and ages of consent in the ancient world look pretty different; as long as he’s not explicitly a prepubescent, bulla-wearing child during sex and has agency/his own desires, I’m fine with it. Fic dealing with Octavian’s mommy issues, Octavian’s canon sibling incest, Atia's assumption that Caesar and Octavian have sex before he comes of age back in 1x04, or the general messiness of Roman sexual norms around age and class are also totally fine.
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George Smiley novels - John Le Carre
Smiley novels
George Smiley/Dieter Frey
These two have serious layers of history and I’d love anything set during any of them, basically. (Or after Dieter’s canon death if you want to write discussion of/reflection upon the relationship, that’s how thirsty I am about these two — there are thoroughly practical reasons for why he doesn’t otherwise appear in the later narratives around Smiley’s life but that’s what fanfiction is for.)
- Something during their time at the same university — Dieter as the idol of his classmates, beautifully Byronic and playing with fire, and Smiley positioned there as the unobtrusive watcher, still getting spotted as a potential ideological ally. It’s fascinating to me how keenly aware of Dieter’s attractiveness Smiley is, and how well-attuned he is to all the ways that attractiveness and conspicuousness puts him in danger — Smiley’s own self-restraint and utterly unromantic outward persona are my kryptonite and I’d love to read some deranged pining against a backdrop of literature and rising dread.
- We’re meant to believe that in his espionage career during the war Dieter manages to thread the needle between his obvious skills and all the highly visible qualities that make him memorable and put him at risk in a virulently antisemitic and ableist social climate, but it could only have been incredibly nerve-racking. I’d love to see any scenes of Dieter and Smiley as spy and handler during this time period, celebrating their wins or coping with crisis, or any of the clandestine meetings and exchanges between the two of them that evoke cruising and wartime trysts.
- Anything post-war is also super welcome, exploring their positions on opposite sides of an ideological gulf — is there any other way they might have crossed paths, tangled up with the Fennans or otherwise?
- Listen… okay… as a frumpy British man of a certain age Smiley must 100% be familiar with a certain degree of situational homosexuality (and tbf Dieter has likely encountered its Continental equivalent) — I’d love anything about how he compartmentalizes (or doesn’t) sexual encounters with men, and likewise for Dieter in an era where both left- and right-wing orthodoxy were incredibly hostile to homosexuality. (If you want to write something about Dieter’s time in East Germany, the thorny history of homosexuality there is fascinating.)
- This is highly self-indulgent and also chronologically shaky given the ways Le Carre has to adjust Smiley’s age and personal timeline as the books featuring him go on, but if you want to include any of the other Circus associates we meet in Le Carre’s novels, either as onscreen presences with whom these two cross paths or just part of the texture of espionage, please do. I love Connie Sachs, Prideaux and Haydon, and anybody else you want to feature. Also Ann, always Ann.
Fandom-specific smut likes: It’s almost been made deliberately hard to objectify Smiley, but I still do; I’d love anything dealing with the contrast between his unprepossessing and unromantic exterior and the times where he does in fact play the lover. Sexual intimacy short of penetration or deliberately skirting penetration; sexual fantasy; hurried trysts; edging.
*
Trust (TV 2018)
Trust
Paul/Angelo Calati
- Pre-escape-attempt weird homoerotic age-inappropriate mountain bonding around the timeframe of 1x04— I love the contrast between the beauty of the landscape with its pastoral teenage pleasures (swimming in rivers, cooking around campfires, shooting the shit about girlfriends back home) and the unmistakable tension and dread of what Paul is really there for.
- Scenes from the time when Angelo and Paul are on the run together. These two have the advantage of a shared language but there’s still a huge gulf of experience and social context between the two of them — how do they see one another? Who makes the first move? Paul has some wild experiences under his belt but he’s still another neglected teenager — how does Angelo feel about that duality?
- What can Paul learn about Angelo while they’re escaping together? What does Angelo know about Paul’s past life? Does he ever learn about Paul’s less-than-golden family history or his track record with schools? Paul can be gentle and vulnerable but he’s ultimately just a lost and stubborn kid with a shitload of problems, many of his own devising; likewise, Angelo is the youngest and most compassionate of Paul’s captors, but he’s still wrapped up in organized crime out of necessity, and he’s capable of blunt cruelty. I’d love anything with the two of them catching glimpses of one another’s pasts. What do they only learn about one another once they’re somewhere else — Rome, Naples, New York?
- I won’t lie, even knowing the obvious historical trajectory of the actual case I was still caught off-guard by Angelo’s death, and I would love any kind of canon divergence there. If they do manage to escape Primo’s sphere of influence, do things get complicated in a different way after that? How far can Paul vouch for Angelo before they start to get tangled in their well-intentioned lies?
- Huddling for warmth, co-sleeping, tending each other’s wounds, trying to cook for each other, and any other flavor of attempted domesticity. If you want to defy all odds and have these two get a little happiness together I would appreciate it. Alternately, the two of them taking risks for each other, especially if Paul’s headstrong fearlessness actually pays off in Angelo’s favor.
Paul/Primo Nizzuto
- This is a pretty candidly fucked-up pairing for [gestures at canon] reasons but I’m interested in whatever take on it you want to deliver — I’m certainly interested in the more dysfunctional and trauma-bonding-oriented side of how this pairing might possibly work, but I enjoy this fandom’s take on potential post-freedom meetings between these two — as Primo’s new influx of cash brings him to Rome, or Paul’s obvious trauma brings him back to Calabria.
- Anything exploring the complicated balance of desire, fear, and coercion between these two — how do they see one another? What shifts in the dynamic of the crew result from whatever exists between Primo and Paul? There’s always an element of consent issues going on here but I’d be interested in how that kind of escalation into a new avenue of violence might raise the stakes; if you want to deal with dubcon/noncon here please do.
- Shared drug use — there’s a pretty robust (by tiny-pairing standards) body of work dealing with this but I’m always interested in more. Alternately, anything dealing with the full range of altered states of consciousness between them — Paul’s illness, delirium, and forced drug use/intoxication, and Primo’s more self-orchestrated coke use and boozing.
- Anything dealing with the complicated gender-and-masculinity shit between them — young Paul is a real product of late-1960s early-1970s media culture and music culture from the long hair to the bare feet and his wild, bony androgyny is part of his charm while for Primo and co. (as it is for the rest of the Getty men) masculinity is closely entwined with power and money. That kind of raunchy 70s masculinity that Primo embodies (the mustache! the tight pants! the coke nail!) is wildly sexy but also transparently dangerous, so if you want to go all-in on those physical contrasts I would be really into it.
- Paul certainly seems aware that he’s an object of older people’s desire during his life in Rome, from his grandfather’s mistresses ogling him in the pool to his nude spread in Playmen — is he aware of this with Primo? Does he ever consider exploiting Primo’s attraction to him as a potential way out, or at least a road to temporary relief from pain and deprivation?
Fandom-specific smut prompts: For Primo and Paul, there’s all of the face-slapping and coke-sharing; drunk sex; high sex; intercrural sex; frottage; unreciprocated orgasms; either of them crying during sex; internalized homophobia coming out in the bedroom; Primo’s experiences or lack of experience with sex between men expressing themselves in sex; stubble burn; hair-pulling; noncon/dubcon with ignored boundaries, homophobia, or mutual attempts at making the best of an awful situation. For Paul and Angelo, I would love any kind of age-appropriate fucking around, whether it’s swapping tense handies in the hills or heavy making out while huddling for warmth; hair-pulling/general kinking on hair; clothes-sharing; swapping dirty stories.
Likes:
- historical details, material culture, pop culture for the era the fic is set in, historical politics (feel free to pick and choose, embroider, and ignore historical reality as desired, especially for fandoms like Trust and Rome where deliberate historical divergence is the name of the game in canon)
- allegiances and loyalty (especially loyalty kink!)
- dreams and nightmares (dream sex and dream symbolism are both a+)
- trauma and PTSD, memory and personal baggage, literal and metaphorical haunting
- friends-to-lovers, enemies-to-lovers-while-remaining-enemies
- pining both reciprocated and unreciprocated
- hurt/comfort: post-whump h/c, battle aftermath, h/c where a powerful/prickly/difficult person is the recipient of the comfort whether they like it or not, h/c where a villain is doing the comforting (for mindfucky sinister reasons or otherwise), h/c where the 'hurt' is embarrassing or a chronic condition with no easy fix
- sex happening before feelings and then feelings show up to the party and make everything weird: characters in denial about their developing feelings, or reluctantly finding themselves feeling something real
- bulletproof loyalty, whether or not it's deserved, and all kinds of loyalty kink
- pet sociopaths -- morally fucky characters doing heinous ruthless things for the one they love, with or without their permission
- infidelity -- guilt, rationalizations, the thrill of the forbidden
- open relationships/background relationships
- all different kinds of historical/genre AUs. Film noir AUs, theater company AUs, 70s horror movie AUs, AUs setting canon in the 1980s corporate world or the English Regency -- any high-concept AU you want to write I want to read.
Side pairings, background pairings, and unrequested characters are all welcome. The prompts I list below are definitely not comprehensive or hard-and-fast -- if nothing here inspires you or if you're inspired to mix and match or write a role-reversal of something I've laid out feel free. I’ve got plenty of smut prompts but I will hugely enjoy anything you write me on any level of explicitness, and I also love pairings that go completely unconsummated.
Smut Likes:
- size differences
- age differences
- aggressive inexperienced characters
- body worship -- scars, hands, body hair, muscles
- blowjobs, handjobs, frottage, intercrural and non-penetrative sex
- clothed/semi-clothed sex, or where only one party is naked
- fancy clothes, uniforms, layers, dressing and undressing
- hatesex and fighting-turned-fucking, arguments, verbal abuse, insults, physical roughhousing and wrestling
- erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation
- breathplay, choking
- cuddlefucking, lazy sex, affectionate post-sex hangouts, pillow talk
- inhibitions and interpersonal baggage in the bedroom
- anonymous or pseudo-anonymous hookups
- sex that's both clumsy/painful and tender
- wound fingering, wound fucking, kinking on the pain and power involved in historical medicine
- rope bondage
- caning and flogging
- characters with physical imperfections (scars, bad joints, body parts that won't necessarily cooperate)
- characters seeking sex for comfort (whether or not they find it)
- sadomasochism, pain, rough body play -- grabbing/shoving/yanking/hitting/punching/etc.
- smoking, sharing cigarettes, cigarette burns
- drug and alcohol use (relaxation and altered states of consciousness during sex as well as substance abuse and dependency)
- time-period-specific sexual practices and meeting places
- head-shaving or hair-cutting, especially nonconsensual/dubiously consensual or degrading/clinical hair-cutting -- I don't know how to work this into any of my fandoms but if you'd like to write it I'd love to read it.
- noncon and dubcon -- especially fucked-up sexual bargaining, villains menacing protagonists, dark!protagonists menacing villains, antagonistic characters mutually attempting to dubcon one another, and anything where the focus is on emotional conflict and distress.
I'm not specifically requesting art this year, but if you feel a visual treat coming on I would love to receive it. I have art likes here in my Chocolate Box letter this year
DNWs: Self-injury or eating disorders due to psychological distress; unrequested incest or child sexual abuse; school or teacher/student AUs; pregnancy; omegaverse/BDSMverse AUs; focus on coming-out or gender transition; noncon with trans victims; urban fantasy werewolf tropes like packs and alphas; scat; OTK spanking. I'd rather not read explicit sex with characters younger than 16.
Feel free to deal thematically with Baron Harkonnen’s canonical sexual abuse of boys and his attraction to Paul and Feyd-Rautha for Dune; likewise feel free to deal with canonical levels of incest and underage sexual experience in Trust and Rome. Feel free to mention Ginsberg’s missing nipple but I’d prefer no focus on him cutting it or anything else off.
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3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Ben Wade/Charlie Prince
- How did Charlie end up in Ben’s gang to begin with? How long’s he been trailing after Wade with the most unsubtle stars in his eyes? What were their respective first impressions of one another? Ben seems like the consummate cool customer as far as leaders go, but Charlie always seems to be just this side of flying off the handle even when his boss isn’t in peril — how did he earn his place as Wade’s de facto lieutenant, and why does Ben tolerate him?
- Any kind of dealing with injury/illness/inclement conditions together, either as part of the bigger gang or caught out alone/separated and trying to reunite. Does Charlie go and get himself injured in the course of trying to do something valiant on Wade’s behalf? What about when it’s the boss who’s injured?
- I’m really interested in the various ways age and experience are played with in this movie — adolescent William both starstruck with outlawry and queasily fascinated by the taking of human life, Ben Wade’s account of starting his gang off in Leadville as a motherless boy not much older — and I’d love any kind of AU where these two’s relative ages are adjusted, whether it’s teenage budding outlaw Wade falling in with an equally teenaged and tempestuous Prince or either one of them as grown men dealing with a teenaged version of the other. (Though a teenaged Charlie Prince with all the admiration for outlaw life and none of the experience sounds like a real powder keg.)
- Charlie seems to be almost as protective of Ben Wade’s glamorous criminal reputation as he is of the man himself, especially in the screenplay where he clearly expects others to respect what Wade’s name signifies (and the near-fetishization of his famous gun) — what does Wade himself make of that when they’re alone together? How aware is he of Charlie’s feelings?
- On the flipside, Charlie Prince is at rock bottom an arrogant, vicious, trigger-happy dickhead and I love it so much — feel free to whump him, rough him up, make him suffer, or have Wade firmly but painfully rein him in from his more reckless tendencies. Even the boss must get tired of him sometimes and as much as I love the loyalty kink/villain-henchman dynamic they’ve got going on I would love anything where a noncon/dubcon element muddies the waters even more.
Fandom-specific smut: Huddling for warmth/bedroll-sharing; loyalty kink; eye contact during sex; intercrural sex; service kink; gun kink, both in the usual sense of gunplay (sex at gunpoint, penetration with a gun, etc.) and in the sense of guns-as-objects-of-desire. (The Hand of God does look awfully pretty, and it’s not like Westerns don’t have a rich track record of homoerotic “btw the gun is my penis” imagery.)
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Dune Series - Frank Herbert
Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen/Paul Atreides
- Something working in the framework of arranged marriage, Bene Gesserit-engineered mating, or kanly — is there some obscure clause in the dictates of the Great Convention that could put these two into contact with each other in a non-stabby context? If you feel the inclination to explore a transmasculine take on Paul Atreides (or Feyd, for that matter) I would be happy to read it.
- Any kind of culture clash between the norms of their respective houses, with fucky space politics and maneuvering. Or a role reversal where Paul is the murder teen engineered for destruction by the dastardly Duke Leto and his bloodthirsty concubine, and Feyd-Rautha is… maybe just as terrible but at least not alone in that? Raised in a wholesome honorable environment by an uncle who doesn’t openly want to fuck him? Who knows!
- Paul getting haunted by Feyd’s ghost, or just hassled by his unwanted ghola. Or anything else exploring the blurred edge between the supernatural and the scientific in this series. Dream-sharing, astral projection, prophecies, premonitions, it’s all delicious to me.
- Either one of them as the other one’s unwanted concubine, prisoner, or hostage. Feyd-Rautha as hostage among the Fremen? Paul as a nonconsenting VIP on Giedi Prime? Fucked-up Baron machinations optional but delightful.
- This is deeply self-indulgent but I don’t care: Paul is a slightly uptight virgin during much of the timeframe of the first book and remains a strict one-Chani guy until he fucks off into the desert, while Feyd-Rautha is absolutely not a virgin and has been immersed in hugely fucked-up Harkonnen sexual norms for his entire life. Something with those two extremes meeting for great angst, casual noncon, or anything else, please.
Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen/Baron Vladimir Harkonnen
If only I could say this was my only problematic dysfunctional royal family incest pairing… but it 100% is not because that dynamic is my forever catnip and these two with their fantastically wack dynamic are grade-A. I love the interconnected interests that bind them together, saturated in a generous cocktail of inappropriate desire, disgust, contempt, and extremely justified suspicion — the Baron is doing something purposeful by purposefully grooming Feyd-Rautha for power and lining him up to take an important place, but Feyd is less than patient with that plan, and why should he be?
- It’s not an uncommon reading of their relationship to read the Baron’s obvious desire for his nephew as unconsummated — if so, why? Besides the more obviously lethal quality of at least some of the Baron’s sexual encounters, what does he think he’s doing to Feyd-Rautha by not bothering to conceal his attraction but also conspicuously not forcing him any further than he does? How conscious is Feyd-Rautha of that, and does he ever try to strike a different kind of bargain?
- The Baron’s punishment for Feyd-Rautha’s poison-needle assassination attempt develops a sexual angle, either on top of forcing Feyd to kill his concubines or parallel to it. I really love how despite his protests Feyd-Rautha is well aware he has no real choice in the matter of how his uncle reacts to the murder attempt and that he’s lucky to be getting out alive, but it certainly
- Feyd-Rautha survives as a prisoner but the Baron figuratively or literally haunts the fuck out of him. Vladimir Harkonnen hassling Alia from beyond the grave relies on another type of mechanism than conventional haunting, but I love it so much, and if you want to echo or parallel that go wild.
- More bouts of mutual backstabbing and treachery — what’s more erotic than treachery? Resentment, scheming, arrogance, gloating, bad blood, public displays of favor and allegiance motivated by weird petty angling… I want it all.
- Sex pollen: both of them getting hit by it and being pissed-off and schemey about it during and afterward, even as they’re driven by forces beyond their control. I just want a weird roiling sea of mutual distrust, asymmetrical desire, and loathing here, and also I think Dune sex pollen would be funny.
Fandom-specific smut likes: body contrasts (I am really partial to brown-skinned, short, wiry Paul in contrast to buff pretty-boy Feyd, and anything recalling that the Baron was a big man even before he grew fat); OTT space luxury in the bedroom; physical violence; fighting turns to fucking; any incorporation of Paul’s terrible purpose(tm) or kwisatz haderach aspects during intimacy; Feyd-Rautha being weird and cynical and suspicious about sex; Paul being a sheltered virgin despite his BG training; coitus reservatus; mutual sexual exploration; deflowering; edging; mindfucks in the boudoir; Dune-fandom-typical philosophical and tactical interior monologues during sex.
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Mad Men
Michael Ginsberg/Sal Romano
- If you've ever wanted to write the early-1970s leather AU for Mad Men fandom, follow your dreams -- all the protocol and meeting-places and fetishization of materials are super hot and I love the thought of exploring canon's themes of shadowy pursuits and secret desires in the context of gettin' dicked. I’d also love anything else exploring other era-specific scenes and communities through Mad Men’s lens of marketing, media messaging, and what people desire or think they desire to make them happy — film, music, publishing, porn.
- Sal Romano illustrates gay porn, Michael Ginsberg is his biggest fan. Alternately, Michael Ginsberg is writing smutty gay pulps for a living and Sal Romano is his biggest fan. I’d love anything exploring both the queer smutty landscape of vintage gay media of the late 1960s/early 1970s, and the ways in which it’s a business proposition governed by market pressures and public demand.
- Sal and Ginsberg meet post-canon in the context of gay activism. This is peak self-indulgence for me because I love gay history but it’s one of the rapidly developing areas of American culture that Mad Men doesn’t touch too much — I’d love to see these two crossing paths in that context despite their different social and cultural backgrounds and the difference in their ages/life stages, either 1970s-style gay liberation and zaps or much later organizing in response to the AIDS crisis.
- I'm always intrigued by Ginsberg's Cinderella pitch, which seems so shadowy and fraught and full of subtext about sex and fear and pursuit -- anything incorporating that kind of dark hunted motif even with consensual sex and someone incredibly hunky would be super hot. On the flipside, the context we see Sal cruising in is really dark and fraught with themes of infidelity/the disconnect between his closeted daytime life and what he'd really rather be doing, and I'd love anything where that's central to the filth.
- Something where Sal comes back to SC&P in Don's absence and it sends Ginsberg's gay paranoia into overdrive. Or on a happier note, Sal meeting Michael's father, or Michael self-actualizing his sexuality a little with Sal's help and vice versa -- Sal sort of gets the shaft in a narrative sense and he's in the closet out of necessity but he definitely seems to know himself and to like himself in a way that might blow Ginsberg's mind.
Bonus porn prompts: cruising, sexual fantasy, anonymous sex, Sal giving blowjobs, virginity loss.
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HBO’s Rome
Julius Caesar/Octavian
- Atia's readiness to believe that her teenage son shrewdly seduced his great-uncle for political gain is sure something and her pushiness about it cracks me the fuck up every time -- so what if Octavian decides to mess with her head and her expectations of what that relationship would look like? Does he take advantage of new latitude as a supposed lover, to political ends or personal ones, or just get a kick out of people thinking he has Caesar's special attention? If you choose to take things a counterhistorical/counter-canonical direction with Caesar's assassination, I'd love something where Octavian tries to take the lead in Caesar's defense and Caesar is appreciative but confounded.
- I love the scene in 1x10 where Octavian anoints Caesar with blood before his triumph, and I'd love more scenes of them interacting in that kind of ambiguous state where Octavian is acting from his position of religious authority and Caesar is nominally submitting to him. What's that like for a man with Caesar's track record of achievements? I'd love any fic that deals with Roman state religion, Octavian's skeptical deism, Caesar's history with symbols and omens, astronomy, haruspexy, dream interpretation, really any of it. (All the weird blood stuff in the triumph preparation scene is also wildly sexy, so take that wherever you want.)
- How does Caesar see Octavian's more cold-blooded/borderline antisocial traits? His approach to politics is pretty different from his eventual heir's, but I'd love anything where the two of them size one another up, or where Caesar reflects on Octavian's appetite for ruthlessness, whether it elicits admiration or unease. (Or both!) The series really showcases the mindfucks Caesar's capable of through judicious employment of mercy and forgiveness -- does that work as well with Octavian when he's feeling nervy?
- Octavian wants to top Caesar, Caesar is keenly aware of why this is Not The Thing… but they figure it out. Roman sexual hangups are my kryptonite, especially as they dovetail with the complicated balances of real-life power between these two and their associates; feel free to make the full spectrum of Roman sex hangups take center stage here. (Or omit them as an area of focus, if that's not your speed, though I'd prefer no ahistorically well-adjusted sexual norms.)
- Octavian isn't great in canon at keeping the secret of Caesar's epilepsy -- though with a family like that, secrets seem hard to maintain -- but I'd love something where he's a bit better at keeping that specific element under wraps, and Caesar is a little grateful, or where his slightly more skeptical take on the interference of gods in the lives of mortals prompts him to take a different tack with an illness that's the supposed product of divine judgment.
Mark Antony/Octavian
- Some scenario where Antony and Octavian are both separately persuaded it's in their best interest to make up… at least for the time being… and have to pretend they're on cordial terms at a dinner party/in public/in front of the Senate/in front of their troops/in front of Cleopatra. Basically fake dating without the dating. Cue ancient Roman gay chicken, hatesex behind the scenes at a social/public/religious event and then having to go back and pretend to be amiable, etc.
- Both of them processing some fucked-up feelings after the death of Caesar, for a rare moment where the immediate fallout of Caesar's literal and metaphorical inheritance isn't getting in the way. Alternately, a fic where Antony is among Caesar's assassins, and the politics get messy.
- If you just want to write more of Antony kicking the shit out of Octavian, I would be very happy. (Octavian managing to kick the shit out of Antony is also very welcome, especially in ways that hurt his pride.) """"Playful"""" sparring gets serious, impromptu rough body play during sex, fighting turning into fucking or "don't look at my boner while we fight!" denial as they both get off on mistreating one another -- listen, I'm sorry, but all the choking in light of Octavian's canon kinks… yeah.
- Fucked up consent issues going every which way! Antony thinks he's dubconning Octavian, Octavian thinks he's dubconning Antony, both of them are right. I love many flavors of dubcon (as evidenced by that way-too-long list up there) and would be happy to read any situation you can contrive to put these guys into.
- Something set during Lupercalia -- the historical Antony seems to have been involved in the festival in some capacity (cf. the whole "offering Caesar a crown" thing) and the tone of those festivities seems like a great backdrop for all hell to break loose. In-group politics, major event-planning logistics, teeth-gritting social niceties while Octavian and Antony are at each other's throats, or just boning down while undergoing ritual purification.
Fandom-specific smut likes: facefucking/anything with outrageous Roman hangups about oral sex and the mouth; Octavian getting sex-choked/slapped; Octavian doing the sex-choking/face-slapping; Octavian as an awfully pretty sadomasochist top; rough body play; intercrural sex; fucking in the spoons position.
DNW notes: This fandom gets some wiggle room on my normal guidelines regarding explicit underage sex since the timeline of canon compresses historical events and ages of consent in the ancient world look pretty different; as long as he’s not explicitly a prepubescent, bulla-wearing child during sex and has agency/his own desires, I’m fine with it. Fic dealing with Octavian’s mommy issues, Octavian’s canon sibling incest, Atia's assumption that Caesar and Octavian have sex before he comes of age back in 1x04, or the general messiness of Roman sexual norms around age and class are also totally fine.
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George Smiley novels - John Le Carre
Smiley novels
George Smiley/Dieter Frey
These two have serious layers of history and I’d love anything set during any of them, basically. (Or after Dieter’s canon death if you want to write discussion of/reflection upon the relationship, that’s how thirsty I am about these two — there are thoroughly practical reasons for why he doesn’t otherwise appear in the later narratives around Smiley’s life but that’s what fanfiction is for.)
- Something during their time at the same university — Dieter as the idol of his classmates, beautifully Byronic and playing with fire, and Smiley positioned there as the unobtrusive watcher, still getting spotted as a potential ideological ally. It’s fascinating to me how keenly aware of Dieter’s attractiveness Smiley is, and how well-attuned he is to all the ways that attractiveness and conspicuousness puts him in danger — Smiley’s own self-restraint and utterly unromantic outward persona are my kryptonite and I’d love to read some deranged pining against a backdrop of literature and rising dread.
- We’re meant to believe that in his espionage career during the war Dieter manages to thread the needle between his obvious skills and all the highly visible qualities that make him memorable and put him at risk in a virulently antisemitic and ableist social climate, but it could only have been incredibly nerve-racking. I’d love to see any scenes of Dieter and Smiley as spy and handler during this time period, celebrating their wins or coping with crisis, or any of the clandestine meetings and exchanges between the two of them that evoke cruising and wartime trysts.
- Anything post-war is also super welcome, exploring their positions on opposite sides of an ideological gulf — is there any other way they might have crossed paths, tangled up with the Fennans or otherwise?
- Listen… okay… as a frumpy British man of a certain age Smiley must 100% be familiar with a certain degree of situational homosexuality (and tbf Dieter has likely encountered its Continental equivalent) — I’d love anything about how he compartmentalizes (or doesn’t) sexual encounters with men, and likewise for Dieter in an era where both left- and right-wing orthodoxy were incredibly hostile to homosexuality. (If you want to write something about Dieter’s time in East Germany, the thorny history of homosexuality there is fascinating.)
- This is highly self-indulgent and also chronologically shaky given the ways Le Carre has to adjust Smiley’s age and personal timeline as the books featuring him go on, but if you want to include any of the other Circus associates we meet in Le Carre’s novels, either as onscreen presences with whom these two cross paths or just part of the texture of espionage, please do. I love Connie Sachs, Prideaux and Haydon, and anybody else you want to feature. Also Ann, always Ann.
Fandom-specific smut likes: It’s almost been made deliberately hard to objectify Smiley, but I still do; I’d love anything dealing with the contrast between his unprepossessing and unromantic exterior and the times where he does in fact play the lover. Sexual intimacy short of penetration or deliberately skirting penetration; sexual fantasy; hurried trysts; edging.
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Trust (TV 2018)
Trust
Paul/Angelo Calati
- Pre-escape-attempt weird homoerotic age-inappropriate mountain bonding around the timeframe of 1x04— I love the contrast between the beauty of the landscape with its pastoral teenage pleasures (swimming in rivers, cooking around campfires, shooting the shit about girlfriends back home) and the unmistakable tension and dread of what Paul is really there for.
- Scenes from the time when Angelo and Paul are on the run together. These two have the advantage of a shared language but there’s still a huge gulf of experience and social context between the two of them — how do they see one another? Who makes the first move? Paul has some wild experiences under his belt but he’s still another neglected teenager — how does Angelo feel about that duality?
- What can Paul learn about Angelo while they’re escaping together? What does Angelo know about Paul’s past life? Does he ever learn about Paul’s less-than-golden family history or his track record with schools? Paul can be gentle and vulnerable but he’s ultimately just a lost and stubborn kid with a shitload of problems, many of his own devising; likewise, Angelo is the youngest and most compassionate of Paul’s captors, but he’s still wrapped up in organized crime out of necessity, and he’s capable of blunt cruelty. I’d love anything with the two of them catching glimpses of one another’s pasts. What do they only learn about one another once they’re somewhere else — Rome, Naples, New York?
- I won’t lie, even knowing the obvious historical trajectory of the actual case I was still caught off-guard by Angelo’s death, and I would love any kind of canon divergence there. If they do manage to escape Primo’s sphere of influence, do things get complicated in a different way after that? How far can Paul vouch for Angelo before they start to get tangled in their well-intentioned lies?
- Huddling for warmth, co-sleeping, tending each other’s wounds, trying to cook for each other, and any other flavor of attempted domesticity. If you want to defy all odds and have these two get a little happiness together I would appreciate it. Alternately, the two of them taking risks for each other, especially if Paul’s headstrong fearlessness actually pays off in Angelo’s favor.
Paul/Primo Nizzuto
- This is a pretty candidly fucked-up pairing for [gestures at canon] reasons but I’m interested in whatever take on it you want to deliver — I’m certainly interested in the more dysfunctional and trauma-bonding-oriented side of how this pairing might possibly work, but I enjoy this fandom’s take on potential post-freedom meetings between these two — as Primo’s new influx of cash brings him to Rome, or Paul’s obvious trauma brings him back to Calabria.
- Anything exploring the complicated balance of desire, fear, and coercion between these two — how do they see one another? What shifts in the dynamic of the crew result from whatever exists between Primo and Paul? There’s always an element of consent issues going on here but I’d be interested in how that kind of escalation into a new avenue of violence might raise the stakes; if you want to deal with dubcon/noncon here please do.
- Shared drug use — there’s a pretty robust (by tiny-pairing standards) body of work dealing with this but I’m always interested in more. Alternately, anything dealing with the full range of altered states of consciousness between them — Paul’s illness, delirium, and forced drug use/intoxication, and Primo’s more self-orchestrated coke use and boozing.
- Anything dealing with the complicated gender-and-masculinity shit between them — young Paul is a real product of late-1960s early-1970s media culture and music culture from the long hair to the bare feet and his wild, bony androgyny is part of his charm while for Primo and co. (as it is for the rest of the Getty men) masculinity is closely entwined with power and money. That kind of raunchy 70s masculinity that Primo embodies (the mustache! the tight pants! the coke nail!) is wildly sexy but also transparently dangerous, so if you want to go all-in on those physical contrasts I would be really into it.
- Paul certainly seems aware that he’s an object of older people’s desire during his life in Rome, from his grandfather’s mistresses ogling him in the pool to his nude spread in Playmen — is he aware of this with Primo? Does he ever consider exploiting Primo’s attraction to him as a potential way out, or at least a road to temporary relief from pain and deprivation?
Fandom-specific smut prompts: For Primo and Paul, there’s all of the face-slapping and coke-sharing; drunk sex; high sex; intercrural sex; frottage; unreciprocated orgasms; either of them crying during sex; internalized homophobia coming out in the bedroom; Primo’s experiences or lack of experience with sex between men expressing themselves in sex; stubble burn; hair-pulling; noncon/dubcon with ignored boundaries, homophobia, or mutual attempts at making the best of an awful situation. For Paul and Angelo, I would love any kind of age-appropriate fucking around, whether it’s swapping tense handies in the hills or heavy making out while huddling for warmth; hair-pulling/general kinking on hair; clothes-sharing; swapping dirty stories.
