Yuletide 2023
Oct. 22nd, 2023 12:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lastwingedthingDear author, I'm so excited you're writing something for me!
I am generally pretty flexible with the things I like. Character-driven stories are awesome, plot-driven stories are awesome, explicit porn is awesome, angst and bleakness are awesome, happy endings are awesome, humour is awesome! Etc.
I do not want to receive: Modern or genre-shift AUs (Exception: I’m fine with this for Hilary Tamar fic only) | Soulmates, soulmarks, hanahaki | Lengthy, explicit descriptions of gore, body horror or violent noncon (mentions are fine) | Non-canon character death of a requested character | Explicit underage involving characters under 16 | Noncon between any requested characters (exception: I’m fine with CNC or dubcon where one party is saying no but both are aware they really do want it) | Scat/watersports/emetophilia | Weight/feeder kink | Inflation | Ageplay | Petplay | 24/7 D/s | Noncon body modification| Mommy kink/mother-daughter roleplay | For Fallen London: Masters as main characters/primary focus (background is fine); Players as characters in the fic and/or second-person/Reader fic (OCs are completely fine, I just don’t want to read about a character called “Player” or “You”) | For Devil Venerable, no M/F as primary focus (F/F, gen, background M/M and background/past M/F are all fine).
General likes: Canon divergence AUs | Time travel (fix-it or otherwise) | Politics, history and worldbuilding | Enemies forced to work together by circumstance | Redemption arcs, particularly the tense complicated kind where a villain’s past deeds are unforgivable, but they can still try to do better in future | Happier endings for characters who are miserable in canon | Unexpected and unconventional happy endings | Finding happiness in a dystopia; making the best of a bad situation.
NSFW likes: Rough/frantic sex | Inhuman strengths/capabilities | Xeno | Creative robot/cyborg sex | Dirty talk | Bondage/restraints | Penetration with things that aren’t cocks (fingers/toys/tentacles/other alien appendages) | Penetration with cocks | Enthusiastic oral sex (including rimming), any gender configuration | Sex pollen & other fuck-or-die scenarios | Dubcon of the “don’t want to want sex with you, but actually really do want it” variety | Kinking on power imbalances/taboo relationships.
I am generally okay with violence, noncon, character death, etc - provided that it is warned for up front - though I would prefer that stories do not focus solely on trauma/horror/violence, and if these do come up as part of the story, I am more interested in the lead up and the aftermath than in dragging out the details of the act itself.
If you need to work your way around a canon relationship of any configuration to write a pairing I've requested (or just like writing it), I do generally enjoy poly and open relationships! "They were together and then they broke up" and "don't even mention it" are also fine. Infidelity is also fine in most circumstances, I'm cool with reading about requested characters doing morally dubious things, so long as the cheated-on party doesn't get written as an OTT villain to justify it.
As for the fandoms and pairings, I requested:
Fallen London | Echo Bazaar
Worldbuilding
About this fandom: a free* online browser game, available here: https://www.fallenlondon.com/ The premise is that the city of London was stolen and taken into a cave below the earth by bats in the early Victorian era; the genre could be described as cosy eldritch horror. See also the wiki here: https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Fallen_London_Wiki It has been around for more than ten years and has grown incredibly complex; there are paid bonus components to the game, but you can play the vast majority of the content free. There are several other games in the same setting (Sunless Sea, Sunless Skies, Mask of the Rose) available for purchase on Steam etc.
My favourite thing about this setting is the moments of weird-eldritch-mystic-horror, blended with the completely mundane. I’d love any kind of fic exploring that – daily life in different parts of the Neath (which could include things like business, art, charity, revolution, travel, holidays, academia, late-game skills like Glasswork, or whatever you like!), an outsider perspective from a newcomer from the Surface, alternatively a Neath character providing an outsider perspective on the Surface, interesting ways of coexisting with the weirder and more challenging aspects of the Neath, etc. My other favourite thing about the setting is the depth of the history, and the vibe you get when everyone’s at least somewhat immortal and it doesn’t matter how many times someone murders their worst enemy, they’re still going to have to keep living with them afterwards.
I am particularly into Parabola, Urchins (including weirdness with Storm), Revolutionaries and the Calendar Council, the Chessboard, the Devils, the Church and the Counter-Church, variously-terrible women who may or may not be becoming Red Queen avatars, the Railway settings and the Zee, the previous four cities (and particularly survivors from those cities) and the Elder Continent. I am less interested in the Masters and, as noted in my DNW list, would not want a story focused on any of them (background appearances are fine though). I have completed Heart’s Desire and played Sunless Sea, but have not played any of the other games or completed any of the other Ambitions (and would prefer no spoilers for Ambitions if possible).
I do love many of the characters in Fallen London very much, and if you’d like to use a particular character as a way to explore a particular theme, please feel free! From the tagset, I am particularly interested in Furnace Ancona, April, October, September, Sinning Jenny, the Bohemian Sculptress and the Secular Missionary. I am less interested in the Manager of the Royal Beth/King with a Hundred Hearts – I would prefer not to receive a story focused solely on them.
Other characters I really enjoy include the Duchess, the Gracious Widow, July, the Appalling Socialite, the Wandering Gondolier, Mrs Plenty and His Amused Lordship, Virginia, the Bishops of Southwark and St Fiacre’s, Cora Bagley, the Delightful Reverend, FF Gebrandt, and the Viscountess.
I would absolutely adore femslash for this fandom, background or otherwise – favourites include the Duchess/the Gracious Widow, Cora Bagley/her canon wife, the Delightful Reverend/the Gilded Minister, and really October/anyone (she is my terrible favourite) but particularly October/the Secular Missionary or October/the Appalling Socialite. But I am not opposed to M/M or M/F either, or gen!
Hilary Tamar Mysteries - Sarah Caudwell
Desmond Ragwort
Julia Larwood
Michael Cantrip
Selena Jardine
This is an AND request: I would like my gift to feature all four characters.
About this fandom: it’s a series of four mystery novels, written and set mostly in the 80s, about the lives of four young barristers in London, as viewed/recorded/gossiped about by their ambiguously-gendered friend/former tutor, Professor Hilary Tamar. They’re in print and available as ebooks.
Everything about this fandom is just charming and delightful (except for the murders, I guess? Also the tax dodging in the third book has... not aged well) and I'd love any kind of story that gave me more of these characters, more of their relationships and hijinks and absurdity.
This is an AND not an OR request - while I love all the characters and I love pretty much all possible combinations and pairings, the thing I most want to see is the four of them together in some way - interacting, working together, getting together, whatever you like. Mostly because the thought of any one or two of them getting left out would make me really sad! I would be equally thrilled by gen, by ship fic involving any subset of the four, or by poly, but I'm less interested in relationships between any one of the four and some other person - basically keep the focus on the four of them and I'll be very happy!
Normally I DNW genre shift AUs but for this fandom, I think a genre shift could be delightful! Provided that the focus was the relationship between the four of them, and they kept their dry humour and bickering, it would be really fun to see an AU with magic, or in space, or even a crossover/fusion with another fandom – anything else I’ve requested this Yuletide or for any other exchange (https://autoao3app.firebaseapp.com/#/everything/search/user/lastwingedthing), or have ever written (exception: please no Harry Potter).
Otherwise, I'd love a casefic/adventure, I'd love some kind of missing scene from any of the books, I'd love slice-of-life - honestly just a standard evening of bickering and sarcasm over dinner would be delightful. All the characters and their relationships with each other are just so hilarious and great, and I always want more. Selena's calm competence as she takes care of Julia is delightful - as is Julia herself, in all her scatty wildness. I really love how the two of them interact! Ragwort and Cantrip spend a lot of time bickering and not enough time working together, for my taste - I love the brief hints in canon that they do actually care about each other and I'd love to see more of that! Cantrip and Julia's bickering sibling-esque relationship is also fantastic - particularly their novel! And I love that Julia is the sexually-active pursuer and Ragwort is the one delicately holding onto his virtue in their relationship. I feel like Selena and Cantrip didn't interact as much - or if they did, it was less memorable - but I'd love to see more of them together!
And I'd absolutely adore some kind of poly fic, or an orgy - I feel like they'd all be up for it, and the kind of slightly-absurd scenario required to (figuratively) get them all into bed together seems like it would be perfectly in line with the books. I do love a good trope, too, so if you wanted to do something like 'forced to get married (for the tax benefits!) AU' or 'sedoretu AU' - or 'forced to get married as a sedoretu (for the tax benefits!) AU' - I would absolutely adore it.
I love Hilary too and would be delighted if Hilary showed up - outsider POV on the four of them, deus ex machina, just general busybodying - though please don't give Hilary an explicit gender identity if you do. (I realise this is kind of tricky with pronouns, I am fine with using 'they' in a gender-neutral way or slightly awkward phrasing to avoid pronouns altogether.)
Justin de Quincy Mysteries – Sharon Kay Penman
Justin de Quincy
About this fandom: a series of four medieval mystery novels written in the nineties and set in the late twelfth century during the reign of Richard the Lionheart. I’m not sure if they’re still in print as paper books, but they’re accessible as ebooks.
These books feel like such an old-school slash fandom, in a great way – Justin is such a delightful woobie with a sad backstory, and he’s always trying to do the right thing while sometimes being very dumb about it, and his ability to collect potential love interests everywhere he goes is very, very funny. I do genuinely like his intense feudal relationship with Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the complicated place his relationship with Claudine is at by the last book; I would be really interested in gen fic exploring his relationship with either of these women, but I’m not really interested in straight-up M/F romance for this fandom.
This fandom does have great M/M potential and I would absolutely adore a fic shipping Justin with anyone else in the tagset (or indeed with just about any other male character who shows up in the books). I’m really interested in the potential for complicated loyalty kink with Prince John – after the events in Prince of Darkness, I think it’s being implied that Eleanor is going to ask Justin to serve John long-term, and we know from history that Prince John is going to remain loyal to Richard for the rest of Richard’s life (and then Eleanor will support John’s claim to the throne over his nephews/her grandchildren!) which sets up some interesting possibilities for Justin as a future king’s man! Complicated, of course, by that time John ordered Justin’s death, and Justin’s weird jealous horniness over past John/Claudine, and also all those times Justin thwarted John’s plans specifically.
I would also absolutely love some Justin/Durand; they hated each other so intensely at first sight it really does loop right round into horniness! The heartbreak of realising you’re on the same side as your worst enemy; the heartbreak of realising you have to work closely undercover with your worst enemy; etc. I would also love to know what actually happened when they were locked in that prison cell together! Some kind of loyalty-kink infused John/Durand/Justin, where John orders Durand and Justin to fuck for his entertainment and/or to resolve their tension, could also be very, very hot.
And Justin/Luke would just be kind of cute, in that young, dumb and incapable of backing down from a dare way; I do love that scene in the first book where they’ve realised they’re on the same side and are working together for the first time, and Justin explicitly thinks “I am about to do something really risky and dumb because I want to impress Luke.” Self-knowledge is important! I also think it’s hilarious that the opening chapters of the first book had historically-accurate bedsharing, but when Luke came to stay with Justin, he slept on the floor for weeks because obviously their homoerotic power was too strong for a book published in the nineties to let them get in bed together. (Also, I do like Aldith and wouldn’t be opposed at all to Luke/Justin/Aldith, if you wanted to go there.)
But I would also be very happy with gen relationships between Justin and any of these characters, or any other kind of Justin gen.
魔尊也想知道 - 青色羽翼 | Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know - Cyan Wings
Baili Qingmiao
About this fandom: Devil Venerable is a Chinese xianxia webnovel, available in free English translation (read more about it here: https://devilvenerable.carrd.co/) The main plot of the book is an m/m romance, but is also very meta about stories and narratives; Baili Qingmiao is not part of the main romance, but she’s the primary driver of the plot and her character arc is central.
Baili’s character arc is deeply satisfying and I love her very, very much, but I feel like – because she is not, in the end, the main character – there were so many parts of her story that were happening in the background, and I would absolutely love to see any of them! But in particular, I would absolutely love to see more about her time in the Great Sect War, or with Qiu Congxue, or her years travelling with Qiu Congxue and Zhongli Qian. I would also love futurefic! I love the little glimpse we get in the last chapter but I would love to see what Baili’s future life is actually like.
I would also absolutely love femslash fic! I ship Baili Qingmiao/Qiu Congxue and Baili Qingmiao/Shu Yanyan about equally and would be absolutely delighted to receive either ship. Or Baili-focused gen fic with background Qiu Congxue/Shu Yanyan would also be great.
Baili Qingmiao/Qiu Congxue is classic master/disciple, and then they end up peers and rivals which is very sexy of them! They’re both so dumb and so appealing, I am with the in-universe shippers on this one! I really would love to see something from any point in their histories, including missing scenes, outsider perspective, literally everyone but Qiu Congxue has realised they have feelings for each other, etc.
And then Baili Qingmiao/Shu Yanyan got me right from the start, when Shu Yanyan seduced He Wenzhao but mostly she and Baili Qingmiao just felt bad about each other, and their later interactions didn’t change those vibes for me at all. Shu Yanyan is smart and genre savvy in a way that most of the others aren’t – sometimes, at least – and while sometimes their vibe is a classic innocent&naïve/experienced&worldly, they’re more complicated than that too.
But gen fic would be just as good – Baili Qingmiao & Qiu Congxue, Baili Qingmiao & Shu Yanyan, or indeed gen fic about Baili Qingmiao’s relationship with Wenren E or Yin Hanjiang or Zhongli Qian or any other character would also be great.
Blood and Sand - Rosemary Sutcliff
Tussun Bey
Thomas Keith
Anoud
This is an AND request: I would like my gift to feature all three characters.
About this fandom: it’s a standalone adult novel by Rosemary Sutcliff, historical fiction about real people set in the beginning of the nineteenth century during Muhammad Ali Pasha’s rise to power in Egypt. It’s out of print, but available as an ebook.
This book is peak Rosemary Sutcliff in so many ways! The classic loyal and brave Sutcliff hero with two loves: one a passionate bond with another man that transcends all the barriers of class, race, language and external loyalty between them, and one a deep mutual understanding with a woman that transcends all the barriers of gender etc between them. I enjoy what we get in the books very much, but I want more between them all!
I do appreciate that Tussun/Thomas is basically canon and honestly the primary romance of the book - but I do also like Anoud, and how matter of fact she and Tussun are about each other; they're starting to develop a lovely friendship, which I enjoy very much! I really like poly and the three of them manage to be remarkably functional, for the brief time they're in each other's orbit. I can absolutely see Tussun as basically uninterested in women - or at least in Anoud - and as just having a friendship with her; conversely I would be fascinated by a threesome, though with the caveat that it would be tricky to work around Anoud's religious sensibilities, and probably also Thomas's!
I would really, really love fix-it fic here - I appreciate the tragedy of Thomas and Anoud's deaths, and how Tussun basically pines to death after losing Thomas, it is very romantic and 100% in character for him - but also, fuck, the ending of the book is such a downer! Obviously Rosemary Sutcliff felt bound by real history, but fic has no such limitations, so please feel free to go as wild as you like with the canon divergence. Or just a slice-of-life set in some nebulous future where they all survived would be lovely – no need to actually explain the fix-it if that doesn’t spark joy for you!
I do love history very much - while I'm not up on early 19th century Eygptian, Ottoman or Saudi history, I would be very much up for any level of detail you'd like to include to make a canon divergence happen (but 'none history' is absolutely fine too though, as noted above, you don’t need to explain anything if you don’t want to).
And I also really genuinely love slice-of-life fic, so if you wanted to write missing scene(s) between the three of them in canon, that would also be really lovely! There aren't a lot of gaps, but there's space for more to have happened between the three of them than what we see in the book; anything would be lovely!
Thank you again so much for writing for me!
I am generally pretty flexible with the things I like. Character-driven stories are awesome, plot-driven stories are awesome, explicit porn is awesome, angst and bleakness are awesome, happy endings are awesome, humour is awesome! Etc.
I do not want to receive: Modern or genre-shift AUs (Exception: I’m fine with this for Hilary Tamar fic only) | Soulmates, soulmarks, hanahaki | Lengthy, explicit descriptions of gore, body horror or violent noncon (mentions are fine) | Non-canon character death of a requested character | Explicit underage involving characters under 16 | Noncon between any requested characters (exception: I’m fine with CNC or dubcon where one party is saying no but both are aware they really do want it) | Scat/watersports/emetophilia | Weight/feeder kink | Inflation | Ageplay | Petplay | 24/7 D/s | Noncon body modification| Mommy kink/mother-daughter roleplay | For Fallen London: Masters as main characters/primary focus (background is fine); Players as characters in the fic and/or second-person/Reader fic (OCs are completely fine, I just don’t want to read about a character called “Player” or “You”) | For Devil Venerable, no M/F as primary focus (F/F, gen, background M/M and background/past M/F are all fine).
General likes: Canon divergence AUs | Time travel (fix-it or otherwise) | Politics, history and worldbuilding | Enemies forced to work together by circumstance | Redemption arcs, particularly the tense complicated kind where a villain’s past deeds are unforgivable, but they can still try to do better in future | Happier endings for characters who are miserable in canon | Unexpected and unconventional happy endings | Finding happiness in a dystopia; making the best of a bad situation.
NSFW likes: Rough/frantic sex | Inhuman strengths/capabilities | Xeno | Creative robot/cyborg sex | Dirty talk | Bondage/restraints | Penetration with things that aren’t cocks (fingers/toys/tentacles/other alien appendages) | Penetration with cocks | Enthusiastic oral sex (including rimming), any gender configuration | Sex pollen & other fuck-or-die scenarios | Dubcon of the “don’t want to want sex with you, but actually really do want it” variety | Kinking on power imbalances/taboo relationships.
I am generally okay with violence, noncon, character death, etc - provided that it is warned for up front - though I would prefer that stories do not focus solely on trauma/horror/violence, and if these do come up as part of the story, I am more interested in the lead up and the aftermath than in dragging out the details of the act itself.
If you need to work your way around a canon relationship of any configuration to write a pairing I've requested (or just like writing it), I do generally enjoy poly and open relationships! "They were together and then they broke up" and "don't even mention it" are also fine. Infidelity is also fine in most circumstances, I'm cool with reading about requested characters doing morally dubious things, so long as the cheated-on party doesn't get written as an OTT villain to justify it.
As for the fandoms and pairings, I requested:
Fallen London | Echo Bazaar
Worldbuilding
About this fandom: a free* online browser game, available here: https://www.fallenlondon.com/ The premise is that the city of London was stolen and taken into a cave below the earth by bats in the early Victorian era; the genre could be described as cosy eldritch horror. See also the wiki here: https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/Fallen_London_Wiki It has been around for more than ten years and has grown incredibly complex; there are paid bonus components to the game, but you can play the vast majority of the content free. There are several other games in the same setting (Sunless Sea, Sunless Skies, Mask of the Rose) available for purchase on Steam etc.
My favourite thing about this setting is the moments of weird-eldritch-mystic-horror, blended with the completely mundane. I’d love any kind of fic exploring that – daily life in different parts of the Neath (which could include things like business, art, charity, revolution, travel, holidays, academia, late-game skills like Glasswork, or whatever you like!), an outsider perspective from a newcomer from the Surface, alternatively a Neath character providing an outsider perspective on the Surface, interesting ways of coexisting with the weirder and more challenging aspects of the Neath, etc. My other favourite thing about the setting is the depth of the history, and the vibe you get when everyone’s at least somewhat immortal and it doesn’t matter how many times someone murders their worst enemy, they’re still going to have to keep living with them afterwards.
I am particularly into Parabola, Urchins (including weirdness with Storm), Revolutionaries and the Calendar Council, the Chessboard, the Devils, the Church and the Counter-Church, variously-terrible women who may or may not be becoming Red Queen avatars, the Railway settings and the Zee, the previous four cities (and particularly survivors from those cities) and the Elder Continent. I am less interested in the Masters and, as noted in my DNW list, would not want a story focused on any of them (background appearances are fine though). I have completed Heart’s Desire and played Sunless Sea, but have not played any of the other games or completed any of the other Ambitions (and would prefer no spoilers for Ambitions if possible).
I do love many of the characters in Fallen London very much, and if you’d like to use a particular character as a way to explore a particular theme, please feel free! From the tagset, I am particularly interested in Furnace Ancona, April, October, September, Sinning Jenny, the Bohemian Sculptress and the Secular Missionary. I am less interested in the Manager of the Royal Beth/King with a Hundred Hearts – I would prefer not to receive a story focused solely on them.
Other characters I really enjoy include the Duchess, the Gracious Widow, July, the Appalling Socialite, the Wandering Gondolier, Mrs Plenty and His Amused Lordship, Virginia, the Bishops of Southwark and St Fiacre’s, Cora Bagley, the Delightful Reverend, FF Gebrandt, and the Viscountess.
I would absolutely adore femslash for this fandom, background or otherwise – favourites include the Duchess/the Gracious Widow, Cora Bagley/her canon wife, the Delightful Reverend/the Gilded Minister, and really October/anyone (she is my terrible favourite) but particularly October/the Secular Missionary or October/the Appalling Socialite. But I am not opposed to M/M or M/F either, or gen!
Hilary Tamar Mysteries - Sarah Caudwell
Desmond Ragwort
Julia Larwood
Michael Cantrip
Selena Jardine
This is an AND request: I would like my gift to feature all four characters.
About this fandom: it’s a series of four mystery novels, written and set mostly in the 80s, about the lives of four young barristers in London, as viewed/recorded/gossiped about by their ambiguously-gendered friend/former tutor, Professor Hilary Tamar. They’re in print and available as ebooks.
Everything about this fandom is just charming and delightful (except for the murders, I guess? Also the tax dodging in the third book has... not aged well) and I'd love any kind of story that gave me more of these characters, more of their relationships and hijinks and absurdity.
This is an AND not an OR request - while I love all the characters and I love pretty much all possible combinations and pairings, the thing I most want to see is the four of them together in some way - interacting, working together, getting together, whatever you like. Mostly because the thought of any one or two of them getting left out would make me really sad! I would be equally thrilled by gen, by ship fic involving any subset of the four, or by poly, but I'm less interested in relationships between any one of the four and some other person - basically keep the focus on the four of them and I'll be very happy!
Normally I DNW genre shift AUs but for this fandom, I think a genre shift could be delightful! Provided that the focus was the relationship between the four of them, and they kept their dry humour and bickering, it would be really fun to see an AU with magic, or in space, or even a crossover/fusion with another fandom – anything else I’ve requested this Yuletide or for any other exchange (https://autoao3app.firebaseapp.com/#/everything/search/user/lastwingedthing), or have ever written (exception: please no Harry Potter).
Otherwise, I'd love a casefic/adventure, I'd love some kind of missing scene from any of the books, I'd love slice-of-life - honestly just a standard evening of bickering and sarcasm over dinner would be delightful. All the characters and their relationships with each other are just so hilarious and great, and I always want more. Selena's calm competence as she takes care of Julia is delightful - as is Julia herself, in all her scatty wildness. I really love how the two of them interact! Ragwort and Cantrip spend a lot of time bickering and not enough time working together, for my taste - I love the brief hints in canon that they do actually care about each other and I'd love to see more of that! Cantrip and Julia's bickering sibling-esque relationship is also fantastic - particularly their novel! And I love that Julia is the sexually-active pursuer and Ragwort is the one delicately holding onto his virtue in their relationship. I feel like Selena and Cantrip didn't interact as much - or if they did, it was less memorable - but I'd love to see more of them together!
And I'd absolutely adore some kind of poly fic, or an orgy - I feel like they'd all be up for it, and the kind of slightly-absurd scenario required to (figuratively) get them all into bed together seems like it would be perfectly in line with the books. I do love a good trope, too, so if you wanted to do something like 'forced to get married (for the tax benefits!) AU' or 'sedoretu AU' - or 'forced to get married as a sedoretu (for the tax benefits!) AU' - I would absolutely adore it.
I love Hilary too and would be delighted if Hilary showed up - outsider POV on the four of them, deus ex machina, just general busybodying - though please don't give Hilary an explicit gender identity if you do. (I realise this is kind of tricky with pronouns, I am fine with using 'they' in a gender-neutral way or slightly awkward phrasing to avoid pronouns altogether.)
Justin de Quincy Mysteries – Sharon Kay Penman
Justin de Quincy
About this fandom: a series of four medieval mystery novels written in the nineties and set in the late twelfth century during the reign of Richard the Lionheart. I’m not sure if they’re still in print as paper books, but they’re accessible as ebooks.
These books feel like such an old-school slash fandom, in a great way – Justin is such a delightful woobie with a sad backstory, and he’s always trying to do the right thing while sometimes being very dumb about it, and his ability to collect potential love interests everywhere he goes is very, very funny. I do genuinely like his intense feudal relationship with Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the complicated place his relationship with Claudine is at by the last book; I would be really interested in gen fic exploring his relationship with either of these women, but I’m not really interested in straight-up M/F romance for this fandom.
This fandom does have great M/M potential and I would absolutely adore a fic shipping Justin with anyone else in the tagset (or indeed with just about any other male character who shows up in the books). I’m really interested in the potential for complicated loyalty kink with Prince John – after the events in Prince of Darkness, I think it’s being implied that Eleanor is going to ask Justin to serve John long-term, and we know from history that Prince John is going to remain loyal to Richard for the rest of Richard’s life (and then Eleanor will support John’s claim to the throne over his nephews/her grandchildren!) which sets up some interesting possibilities for Justin as a future king’s man! Complicated, of course, by that time John ordered Justin’s death, and Justin’s weird jealous horniness over past John/Claudine, and also all those times Justin thwarted John’s plans specifically.
I would also absolutely love some Justin/Durand; they hated each other so intensely at first sight it really does loop right round into horniness! The heartbreak of realising you’re on the same side as your worst enemy; the heartbreak of realising you have to work closely undercover with your worst enemy; etc. I would also love to know what actually happened when they were locked in that prison cell together! Some kind of loyalty-kink infused John/Durand/Justin, where John orders Durand and Justin to fuck for his entertainment and/or to resolve their tension, could also be very, very hot.
And Justin/Luke would just be kind of cute, in that young, dumb and incapable of backing down from a dare way; I do love that scene in the first book where they’ve realised they’re on the same side and are working together for the first time, and Justin explicitly thinks “I am about to do something really risky and dumb because I want to impress Luke.” Self-knowledge is important! I also think it’s hilarious that the opening chapters of the first book had historically-accurate bedsharing, but when Luke came to stay with Justin, he slept on the floor for weeks because obviously their homoerotic power was too strong for a book published in the nineties to let them get in bed together. (Also, I do like Aldith and wouldn’t be opposed at all to Luke/Justin/Aldith, if you wanted to go there.)
But I would also be very happy with gen relationships between Justin and any of these characters, or any other kind of Justin gen.
魔尊也想知道 - 青色羽翼 | Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know - Cyan Wings
Baili Qingmiao
About this fandom: Devil Venerable is a Chinese xianxia webnovel, available in free English translation (read more about it here: https://devilvenerable.carrd.co/) The main plot of the book is an m/m romance, but is also very meta about stories and narratives; Baili Qingmiao is not part of the main romance, but she’s the primary driver of the plot and her character arc is central.
Baili’s character arc is deeply satisfying and I love her very, very much, but I feel like – because she is not, in the end, the main character – there were so many parts of her story that were happening in the background, and I would absolutely love to see any of them! But in particular, I would absolutely love to see more about her time in the Great Sect War, or with Qiu Congxue, or her years travelling with Qiu Congxue and Zhongli Qian. I would also love futurefic! I love the little glimpse we get in the last chapter but I would love to see what Baili’s future life is actually like.
I would also absolutely love femslash fic! I ship Baili Qingmiao/Qiu Congxue and Baili Qingmiao/Shu Yanyan about equally and would be absolutely delighted to receive either ship. Or Baili-focused gen fic with background Qiu Congxue/Shu Yanyan would also be great.
Baili Qingmiao/Qiu Congxue is classic master/disciple, and then they end up peers and rivals which is very sexy of them! They’re both so dumb and so appealing, I am with the in-universe shippers on this one! I really would love to see something from any point in their histories, including missing scenes, outsider perspective, literally everyone but Qiu Congxue has realised they have feelings for each other, etc.
And then Baili Qingmiao/Shu Yanyan got me right from the start, when Shu Yanyan seduced He Wenzhao but mostly she and Baili Qingmiao just felt bad about each other, and their later interactions didn’t change those vibes for me at all. Shu Yanyan is smart and genre savvy in a way that most of the others aren’t – sometimes, at least – and while sometimes their vibe is a classic innocent&naïve/experienced&worldly, they’re more complicated than that too.
But gen fic would be just as good – Baili Qingmiao & Qiu Congxue, Baili Qingmiao & Shu Yanyan, or indeed gen fic about Baili Qingmiao’s relationship with Wenren E or Yin Hanjiang or Zhongli Qian or any other character would also be great.
Blood and Sand - Rosemary Sutcliff
Tussun Bey
Thomas Keith
Anoud
This is an AND request: I would like my gift to feature all three characters.
About this fandom: it’s a standalone adult novel by Rosemary Sutcliff, historical fiction about real people set in the beginning of the nineteenth century during Muhammad Ali Pasha’s rise to power in Egypt. It’s out of print, but available as an ebook.
This book is peak Rosemary Sutcliff in so many ways! The classic loyal and brave Sutcliff hero with two loves: one a passionate bond with another man that transcends all the barriers of class, race, language and external loyalty between them, and one a deep mutual understanding with a woman that transcends all the barriers of gender etc between them. I enjoy what we get in the books very much, but I want more between them all!
I do appreciate that Tussun/Thomas is basically canon and honestly the primary romance of the book - but I do also like Anoud, and how matter of fact she and Tussun are about each other; they're starting to develop a lovely friendship, which I enjoy very much! I really like poly and the three of them manage to be remarkably functional, for the brief time they're in each other's orbit. I can absolutely see Tussun as basically uninterested in women - or at least in Anoud - and as just having a friendship with her; conversely I would be fascinated by a threesome, though with the caveat that it would be tricky to work around Anoud's religious sensibilities, and probably also Thomas's!
I would really, really love fix-it fic here - I appreciate the tragedy of Thomas and Anoud's deaths, and how Tussun basically pines to death after losing Thomas, it is very romantic and 100% in character for him - but also, fuck, the ending of the book is such a downer! Obviously Rosemary Sutcliff felt bound by real history, but fic has no such limitations, so please feel free to go as wild as you like with the canon divergence. Or just a slice-of-life set in some nebulous future where they all survived would be lovely – no need to actually explain the fix-it if that doesn’t spark joy for you!
I do love history very much - while I'm not up on early 19th century Eygptian, Ottoman or Saudi history, I would be very much up for any level of detail you'd like to include to make a canon divergence happen (but 'none history' is absolutely fine too though, as noted above, you don’t need to explain anything if you don’t want to).
And I also really genuinely love slice-of-life fic, so if you wanted to write missing scene(s) between the three of them in canon, that would also be really lovely! There aren't a lot of gaps, but there's space for more to have happened between the three of them than what we see in the book; anything would be lovely!
Thank you again so much for writing for me!
