the_wavesinger | Tis The Season To Be Jolly! [Yuletide Letter]

Dear Yuletide Author,

I’m so excited for Yuletide, to write and receive fic for my tiny fandoms, and I hope you’re excited too!

If you want to know more about me , I’m

the-wavesinger and The Wavesinger (Silmarillion Writers’ Guild) on my fannish haunts. You can also find me here on DW, and as

the_wavesinger on LJ, but I don’t frequent those places often. I If you want more on my fic preferences (however unlikely that is, after this very long letter!), my fic rec tag on Tumblr and my AO3 bookmarks may be of some use. You may also want to poke through my previous exchange letters.

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DNWs
General Likes
Hallelujah
Hiccup Series
Madam Secretary
A Tale of Two Cities
The Dragonfly Pool
The Shoes of the Fisherman

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DNWs:

Horror.
Zombies, vampires, werewolves etc unless specifically requested.
Gore/guro/vore, necrophilia.
Torture of animals. (Humans/humanoids/other sapients being tortured is more than fine!)
Graphic descriptions of nausea/vomiting (i.e. anything beyond “X was feeling nauseated/threw up”).
Reader inserts.
Unrequested depowered/non-powered AUs, unrequested modern AUs.
Non-femslash A/B/O; femslash for this trope is fine!
Crossovers/fusions between fandoms I haven't asked for. (Crossover within any fandom in my letter or previous exchange letters, along with mythology and folklore, are more than fine!)
Age regression, de-ageing, or AUs in which one character is suddenly older than a previously older-than-them character (ageswap?).
Girl!penis. (Trans characters are fine, but not cis women possessing penises.)
For smut, bloodplay, scat, watersports, age play (including daddy/mommy kink), and any sort of permanent marking/scarring/body modification (scarring and permanent markings outside smut is perfectly fine) unless I've prompted these things for the specific pairing.
H/C fics centering on characters with depression and/or anxiety, and/or characters who self-harm or have eating disorders (all of these things are more than fine in non-H/C fic, or fics with hurt but no comfort, my DNW only involves H/C specifically.)
Unrequested relationships as a focus. (Background relationships, canon or non-canon, are fine unless otherwise indicated.)
Unrequested crossgenerational incest (parent/child, aunt/niece etc)
Extreme underage (pre-pubertal children), unrequested smut for underage relationships
Anachronistic discussions of sexuality and/or characters lecturing other characters on SJ issues.

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General Likes:
Tropes, Genres, and (for fic) Story Elements

Angst. Drama. Politics. Tragedy.
Philosophical ponderings!
I love canon divergence AUs, and For Want Of A Nail and other what-if scenarios. I'd love both longer fic (for fic) and art/ficlets as snapshots of what could have been, all the things that could've happened, but didn't.
Soulmates! Not necessarily soulmate AUs (although that'd be more than fine), but soulmates as in 'I knew you the moment I saw you', or 'I felt you in my soul' or any other version of that—the electric connection is something I adore. Soulmate things I love include in every version of every reality, in another life, fated to be separated again and again.
Regency AUs.
Fake dating within the canon setting.
Arranged marriage within the canon setting.
Time travel and time loops, especially timefuckery where everything is fucked up!
(For femslash only) A/B/O
M/M mpreg! Especially (but not limited to) mpreg as body horror
Similarly, F/F fpreg! (I prefer pregnancies in F/F and M/M to pregnancies in F/M.)
In-world mythology.
Cultural differences and clashes that occur due to cultural differences.
Worldbuilding in general.
Battle couples!
Lovers to enemies.
Enemies to lovers.
Trope subversions.
I have A Thing for sister/sister, and focusing on the sister aspects of the relationship—how they're alike and how they're different, and just how they're sisters.
Competence porn!
I also adore people being messes and general failboats, because, uh, contradictions?
I have zero problems with fics dealing with misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, racism etc. I like realism, but not overly-depressing fics or fics centered on issues at the expense of characterization. (I define 'overly-depressing' as continuous angst focusing on Issues and Only Issues.)

Tone, Setting, and Miscellaneous Things

Characters dancing and spending time outdoors.
Characters in situations that shouldn't be funny, but are.
Characters who're comfortable around each other, and who tease and laugh with each other.
Slice-of-life fics and, for relationships, a look at all the quirks/annoyances of cohabitation.
Banter! I feel like I've repeated this a million times in this letter, but I adore banter!
Casual situations and everyday annoyances
Drama interspersed with humor.
Characters sleeping on each other, making out for hours, drinking from the same cup, and generally being cohabit-y.
Characters solving mysteries and going on journeys together!
Bittersweetness.
All the hard questions with no answers, characters trapped in unsolvable dilemmas, loss and grief and moving on.
Gallows humour, and humour in otherwise dark situations generally.
And just humour in general.
And if you want to go in the crack-y direction, I wouldn't mind that as well!
I adore OFCs and textual ghosts, for many, many reasons.
I'm more than fine with most side relationships, unless stated otherwise.
Transgender characters would be amazing, as would non-binary characters and just fucking with and/or ignoring traditional gender roles in general.

Character and Relationships Dynamics

Characters who and relationships which fall just short of the mark, the almost-most-not-quite. I think the closest word to this would be hamartia in its original sense?
Hurt, and not necessarily comfort.
Fucked-up families and messy friendships which really, really aren't good for the characters, but they love each other very much anyway
- characters finding ways to move past the fucked-upness and the relationships end up flourishing
- moving past fucked-up-ness and leaving what they don't want behind
- a constant cycle of messing up.
Found families!
Intense friendships which play a central role in the characters' lives.
For longer works, plotty fics are always welcome!
Stoic and/or emotionally incompetent characters
Characters finding ways to come to terms with themselves, with their pasts, and with their loved ones and/or finding their place in the world (think Circle of Life).
General character type stuff:
- I like
  - characters who're broken
  - characters who're tired
  - characters who're lost and characters who refuse to be found
  - characters who're hurt over and over again
  - characters who never ever win
  - characters who've given up
- - And characters who're a mixture of both types.
- I love characters with flaws and unpleasant qualities!
I like relationships that are fated to end in tragedy, but I also really don't mind a pinch of humor with my angst, if that's your thing.

Stylistic Things for Fic

I like all kinds of fic, so go wild—linear narrative, flashbacks, epistolary…whatever you think of is lovely, the more daring the better. I especially adore faux-historical documents and faux academia.
Relatedly, interactive fiction!
Characters teasing and bantering with each other.
I don’t mind any type of POV (including second person!). In fact, POV switches and outside POVs on relationships would be lovely.

Smut Likes/Yuleporn Prompts

I will always want F/F or M/M smut, even if I haven't explicitly requested it! Femsub is preferred for F/M D/s smut, though I'm down for femdom if that's your thing, too.
I prefer a balance between sensuality, emotions, and physical sensations. Anything from playful to creepy is more than fine (although there are a few things I'd prefer not to see, as outlined in the kink DNWs).
Helplessness and humiliation. These are the two main things I love in kinky smut, and everything else derives from there.
Bantering and laughing during sex is lovely, as is gentleness.
And banter between the dom and the sub in D/s scenes (which can edge towards slightly cruel on the dom's part!).
Angry sex/hatesex, smut that gives off vibes of slightly creepy but in a way that can't be pinpointed
Dubcon and emotional manipulation!
Explorations of power dynamics. I especially like service submission, and power dynamics based on the characters' titles/positions! (I do confess to having a kink for honorifics and titles!)
Doms having control over the sub's everyday minutiae (although for short periods of time—24/7/365 high-protocol D/s is a turn-off)
Punishment play, especially unusual forms of discipline! (I don't like erotic spanking in and of itself, but spanking as punishment is great! And whatever interesting punishments you can come up with.)
Corner time, especially kneeling on rice/somehow having to display themselves/after a spanking.
In general, being put on display/having to put themselves on display.
Tickling! Both playful tickling and tickle torture (bondage + tickling = yessss).
Gags and other ways to prevent speech. And weirdly specific, but fingers of one character in the other's mouth.
Groping, especially pulling breasts out of tops (and sometimes letting them just hang there, if you're into humiliation).
Orgasm denial, especially chastity devices.
Fuck-or-die scenarios.
Creative bondage (including predicament bondage. No, strike that, especially predicament bondage, and especially if the predicament is partly psychological).
Similarly, ordering a partner to stay still/hold a certain pose.
Incest kink.
Hairpulling.
Directed masturbation (one character instructing the other how to masturbate).
Dirty talk (including long distance dirty talk).
Navels, inner things, ribs, and kinks for these body parts.
(Not really a like, but I'm afraid my AO3 bookmarks won't say much about my smut likes, because I have a separate account for smutty bookmarks. Sorry.)

Darker Likes/Crueltide Prompts

Dark places and enchantments which entrap people without their knowledge
Getting lost in creepy surroundings
Corruption and decay
Explorations of the darker side of magic (or its equivalent), especially magic that's considered 'good'.
Exploration of the supernatural aspects of the canons.
Nature being eerily alive and dangerous.
Child soldiers, trauma, and really ugly, messy wars.
Characters trapped in vicious cycles.
Characters who think they're 'not good enough' for their partner(s).
Situations where characters are blackmailed/coerced into doing things they don't want to do.
Fucked-up families and friendships and relationships; people codependent to the point of almost-insanity, and far beyond anything healthy.
Looking into messed-up characters' thought processes.
Terrible things being done in the name of good by characters who see themselves as good.
Perversion of the 'good' side of magic to do evil things.
Mindfucks and powerplay.
Torture for the sake of torture, and characters being stoic through torture.
Noncon. I like both works focused on sexy (for fic and art purposes) noncon as well as more seriously-dealt with noncon and noncon aftermath.
Pregnancy due to F/F or M/M noncon.
Badtouch that doesn't lead to noncon, it's just there and creepy. (Especially when coupled with emotional fuckery and mindgames.)
Relationships where one characters is in love, but the other isn't.
Partners doing terrible things to each other.
Characters who hate themselves and lash out at the world and do fucked-up things as a result.
Really, really dark stories which end in the 'everyone dying' sort of tragedy.
AUs where everything goes wrong.
For darkfic especially, I love outsider PoVs—it makes everything 100% more terrible for me.

Other Stuff I like (i.e. a very skippable section)

Action/Adventure:fight scenes between individuals ◈ big battle scenes ◈ going on quests/missions ◈ fighting bad guys together ◈ period-typical/canon-typical weapons ◈ characters being very very good at fighting/tactics/strategy ◈ strategy and tactics in general ◈ movements of large armies ◈ end-of-the world scenarios ◈ high-stakes battles or missions ◈ covert operations ◈ supernatural elements being involved in the mix in canons with supernatural/magical elements ◈ fighting techniques ◈ plotty missionfic
Angst: musings on futility □ hopeless situations and things falling apart □ characters' flaws getting the better of them □ battles being lost □ stuck in situations without support □ forced to deceive loved ones □ unhappy endings □ everything that could go wrong going wrong □ (internalized or otherwise) homophobia □ struggles with religion/faith/belief □ ethical/moral dilemmas □ misunderstandings □ feeling unloved □ being forced to hurt loved ones and do other bad things □ having to compromise on their ideals □ Hobson's choice situations □ betrayals of trust □ star-crossed lovers or the platonic version of this □ the world changing and leaving the characters behind □ things being lost to the ravages of time
in spaaaace ◎ different canon format (eg: musicals –> TV scripts) ◎ tone changes (eg: drama to comedy, tragedy to romance) ◎ crackification ◎ adding magic/supernatural elements to canons ◎ focusing on a different aspect of a story than the canon does
Established Relationship: arguments and fights ○ vicious cycles ○ drama ○ compromising and learning to live together ○ date nights ○ banter and flirting ○ falling into bed together after a long day ○ characters organizing their lives around each other ○ unhealthy, obsessive relationships ○ smut ○ meeting the family ○ acquiring pets and/or kids and/or property
Getting Together: meet-cutes (including canon divergence AUs) ◌ angst about each others' feelings ◌ obstacles that have to be overcome ◌ A is convinced B doesn't like them ◌ characters who haven't met in canon meeting for the first time ◌ fake dating leads to real dating ◌ fucking for the greater good ◌ something makes them do it ◌ enemies to lovers ◌ friends to lovers ◌ soulmate AUs ◌ reincarnation AUs ◌ slow burn ◌ hey I just met you this is crazy ◌ one night stands to lovers ◌ angst over not being allowed to be together ◌ A has been hurt by other people in the past and has to slowly fall for B ◌ unrequited love turning requited ◌ A falls for B, who's been nursing a crush on A since forever
Hurt/Comfort: noncon aftermath ◘ torture aftermath ◘ recovering from an abusive relationship ◘ other kinds of post-abuse trauma ◘ injury aftermath ◘ characters stitching themselves together ◘ partner/other person hurting character and then comforting them ◘ PTSD (in a canon-appropriate way) ◘ contrast between current gentleness and past violence ◘ the comfort not helping with certain instinctual reactions (touch aversion, flinching, hyperawareness, hypersensitivity etc.) ◘ comforter feeling helpless in the face of comfortee's issues ◘ two hurt/fucked-up characters trying to comfort each other ◘ attempts to comfort/make things better backfiring ◘ comfortee refusing to accept comfort
miscommunication ◍ wanting different things in life ◍ wanting different things from each other ◍ betrayal ◍ lying to friends/partners ◍ arguments ◍ blow-ups that have been a long time coming ◍ deliberate miscontsructions ◍ deliberately hurting each other ◍ unintentionally hurting each other
Slice of Life: I love seeing glimpses into character's everyday lives in canon-appropriate ways. I love slice-of-life fics as insight into characters' backstories and histories, as well as as looks into their heads and as ways to figure out what's making them tick, or to make it clear that the characters' everyday lives are immensely atypical/fucked up. I also love these kinds of fic as worldbuilding vehicles.

Wrapping Paper Challenge Prompts

I adore all kinds of jewellery—the more elaborate the better!
And elaborate hairdos! And elaborate clothes! And elaborate makeup!
I do, however, also enjoy seeing characters in their workaday attire, doing everyday things.
Characters with visible height differences from each other!
Elaborate weapons
In-universe art. (Famous portraits, posters for events, propaganda/health-and-safety leaflets, handwritten notes, maps etc.)
In-universe statues and tapestries and architecture
Court settings with pomp and circumstance or everyday life are both things I enjoy seeing.
I also enjoy seeing outdoor settings. Lakes, mountains, spooky forests, bustling cities, rivers, tiny hamlets, cottages, forests...
Specific canon locations (like the Withywindle for Tolkien, the Spirit World for A:tLA etc.)
Studies in opposites
Limited palettes
Non-traditional art mediums would be welcome.
Characters doing things they love together (I know this sounds very pairing-specific, but I'd lovelovelove this for friends and/or parents and children and/or siblings, too).
Ceremonies and events (coronations, balls, feasts, weddings etc.)
Picnics, garden parties, outdoor events, riding, hunting etc.
Characters arguing or debating with each other.
Starlight and warm colors and pastels.
Colour palettes that fit the character (golds and greens for Goldberry in Tolkien, for example, or shades of red for Natasha Romanov in MCU)
Characters passionate with and about each other and about things they love
Seasonal settings (falling leaves or snowed-over land or flower-filled meadows or golden fields etc.)
Characters fighting and having each other's backs, and, for A:TLA, bending!
Bloodied and bruised characters leaning on each other on on the nearest available upright surface after a hard battle
Characters facing each other across the battlefield (especially friends-turned-enemies)
Gift-giving, both literal and metaphorical
Characters reading or writing
Characters in libraries/otherwise surrounded by books
Characters who've fallen asleep (in bed, on a pile of books, sprawled across the sofa, on the floor, on another character—anywhere, any place, any time)
Characters in meetings/teams seated around tables or in lounges
For modern-era canons, airports!
Characters who look messy and/or rumpled and tired and way too fucking busy why is this my life
Possessive touches (one character having their arm around another, hand at the small of back, cupping another character’s face etc)
Characters in a private moment.
Casually intimate gestures, like handholding or hands on shoulders or arms around waists/on shoulders, or just reaching out to adjust the other's clothing
Kneeling and hand-kissing for pairings where I specify loyalty kink, or for gen or shippy combinations which involve a superior and subordinate in a setting where kneeling would work
Forehead kissing!
Kissing and making out, especially making out in bed/in unusual places and/or a significant height difference between characters
Tickling and playful tussling
Day-to-day activities (eating, bathing, morning rituals etc.)
Characters being cheesy or tender or dorky or awkward with each other (or all or some of these!).
All the smutty things I've indicated in the smut section! For art especially, a visual focus on power difference (standing/kneeling, clothed/unclothed etc.), looking well-fucked and/or humiliated, straining against bondage, decorative bondage.

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Hallelujah – Leonard Cohen (Song)

Watch on YouTube

Lyrics

Narrator
You

Gen and shipfic are all fine. I do prefer M/M for shippiness (or F/F), but if you want to do F/M that's also fine. Either the narrator and “you” or just the narrator or just ‘you’ would be great.

Notes on versions/song:

Hallelujah is one of those old classic songs I should be tired of by now but somehow am not tired of. It's so good, still.

I prefer the version I linked above (this is one singer whose voice gets better with age IMO), but whatever changes to the lyrics Cohen makes through time is fine, as long as it's a Cohen version of the song.

General imagery stuff:

I love the religious imagery and the sense of scope and the hauntingness of the song, and of despair and faith through the ages.
Whether you choose to take it in a religious direction (and a story about keeping and losing faith, for whatever religion or a fantasy/sci-fi religion would be very interesting), or make it about love (or anything else—the rise and fall of empires, politics, and somehow I kind of think of someone trying desperately to do the right thing in a horrible situation), I don't mind. I'd just love the atmosphere of the song—both the uplifting joy and the terrible despair—to be translated to fic.
I love the discrete series of images and stories and episodes that make up this song, and the common thread linking all of them—if you want to include the episodic storytelling format in your fic that'd be great (though I wouldn't mind a more continuous story either).

Character-related stuff:

The feelings between the narrator and ‘you’, whoever ‘you’ is, are so intense and complicated and I’d love anything playing with that.
Who exactly is ‘you’? I know most readings tend towards it being different people in different verses, and if that’s your thing that’s great! But I would also really love an interpretation where it’s referring to the same person, which would make the song very very bi either way. Or is it more metaphorical, referring to the narrator’s struggles with faith or to the narrator themselves?
I’d love anything playing with the repeated theme of love and loss and the idea of love and devotion, and how that relates to the narrator.
Who are these people, the narrator and/or ‘you’? How do they come to the places they are in the song, what is it that makes up their lives and their relationships and who they are? There’s so little of them in the song and yet so much, and I’d love to see who the people behind these deep emotions really are.
Or something in an entirely different direction--mpreg involving the narrator, maybe, as a curse or a blessing or both? (I'd prefer that the mpreg is an unusual/unheard-of occurrence in whatever works you choose to set it in for this )

Also, a couple of even-more-optional-than-everything else crossover prompts:

A crossover with Kings (the TV series) or The Shoes of the Fisherman, with the narrator and ‘you’ ~~or just playing with the themes, I don’t mind either way~~.
The narrator is the same person as the narrator in Dolly Parton’s Jolene (or any other song/music video that has a first-person narrator and is/could be interpreted to be M/M or F/F, tbh).

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Hiccup Series – Cressida Crowell

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third

For this fandom, fics shipping Hiccup with Grimbeard the Ghastly or any of his other ancestors (especially the other Hiccups, but excluding his parents and grandparents), Thuggory, Humungously Hotshot the Hero (I love writing that out), and Snoutlout would be great. Otherwise, I pretty much prefer gen.

General stuff I like about the books:

I love the OTT ridiculous names! This is the very first thing on the list because the ridiculous names (and the worldbuilding in general) are my favorite.
Hiccup’s world is so vivid and colorful, and anything about that/playing with that would be great.
I love all the humor! OTT and tongue-in-cheek and wildly ridiculous and so much fun. It’s glorious and I love it.
But I also love that despite being so much fun, the books have an epic scale to them, too, and I love the tragedy and the hopefulness of the story, and the sad parts of the books thar are made so much sadder by the lightheartedness of everything else.
The framing device. Older Hiccup’s voice and notes and the wistfulness/sadness of them is a perfect foil to the adventures of the book.
And also, the OTT (I’m using that word a lot, but tbh it’s such a great description of these books and why I love them) adventures and quests and misadventures.
DRAGONS. Need I say more? (Well, I’ll say more. I love how the dragons have such distinct personality, and the snark most of them have and the byplay we see between dragons and how dragons and Vikings had more of a partnership than anything else even if it went kind of sideways.)
Even more-optional-than-everything-else thing I like/prompt: I have a soft spot for the illustrations of the book, if that’s what you want to play with. (And also, stick figures. Stick figure Hiccup!) Whether incorporating the text of whatever you write into that, or as a Wrapping Paper Challenge thing, if you want to create art I would like it.

What I like about Hiccup is multitudes

He’s sensible and intelligent but also brave and open-hearted and basically a big damn Hero and I love him so much!
I love that he’s kind of a runt and not the best at being a Viking but still manages to save the day through a combination of wits and accidents.
I love his openness and how he’s kind and always willing to give people a chance even when he has no reason to trust them, and that he keeps trusting over and over and over again.
All the connections he forms and the friends he makes—some of them (many of them) odd and outcasts (even if not Outcasts), and a pretty ragtag group, but all people he would do anything for.
His complicated relationship with his father and his mother and his family.
His dragon-whispering—how he knows dragons so well, his relationships with individual dragons as foes and friends and companions.

Some specific prompts:

Hiccup’s friendships and relationships with various people—missing moments or how they stand the test of time.
Hiccup + dragons! More on his relationship with Toothless and how he feels about how dragons grow more and more rare as he gets older.
Or maybe an AU where Furious doesn’t die—what happens? Does the Dragon Rebellion go on, or do they manage to hash out a peace? Or anything about Hiccup’s complicated relationship with Furious, really.
Hiccup building Tomorrow and ruling it, and all the ups and downs of that, and how Fishlegs and Camicazi are involved (or not).
Hiccup and Humongous meeting again in the future.
Grimbeard or one of the other Hiccups meets Hiccup, either through time travel or in a dream world or in the afterlife.
One of the things that caught my imagination is a line in the earlier books about how Hiccup hopes that one day everyone can have beautiful and dangerous things and use them wisely. Maybe something about that? If Hiccup time-travelled to the present-day world, what would his reaction be to our technology and our weaponry?
Do the dragons every come out of hiding and back into the world?
In general, just adventures and fun and Hiccup being a Hero.

I also have some even-more-optional-than-the-rest crossover prompts

Crossover with historical RPF fandom of your choice (especially if it’s set in the same era).
The dragons of any dragon-having canon I’ve ever requested in any exchange meet the dragons (and Hiccup) of the books. Especially the dragons in Tolkien’s Roverandom, that would be interesting.
Jack Harkness meets Hiccup, shippy or gen.

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Madam Secretary

Elizabeth McCord

First, spoiler alert for new episodes up to Valor (sorry?). And I’m keeping up with the weekly episodes, so feel free to incorporate recent canon. Or if you want to play with the older parts of canon, that’s also great—there’s so much to choose from in this fandom!

General stuff I like about the show:

I love the initial case-of-the-week format (the ensemble is great and everyone is fun) but I also love the current season’s format with the story arc tying up multiple episodes.
I love the starry-eyed idealism of the show and how even if there are failures a lot of the time it has the right thing and good people winning out. (But also, if you want to get more realistic ~~or call out the kind of American imperialism of the show~~ I would also love that!)
The world of Madam Secretary seems to be slightly different from the real world—I’d love to see worldbuilding and backstory and where it diverges and where it doesn’t.
My fave is Elizabeth (who is the BEST) but I also love the rest of the cast, tbh, and if you want to have them play major roles that’d be great. (My one exception is that while I like Elizabeth’s and Henry’s relationship, I’m not a fan of Henry doing, well, basicallyeverything except what Elizabeth does and being brilliant at all of it. I still really love Henry! Just…maybe dial it down it a bit from where the show is at?)

Elizabeth! Elizabeth is my favorite, for so so many reasons.

I love how brilliant she is—competence kink, smutty or non-smutty or gen, all of that is great. I’d love to see her being really good at what she does.
Also, her courage of conviction and her desire to do the right thing, but she still compromises and does what she has to.
Her warmth and her openness and her compassion, how alive she is and how she still finds joy in the midst of her very high-stress job.
And idk how well this will translate to fic, but Tea Leoni is so great at acting Bess—her mannerisms and the way she talks and just…everything about her is my favorite and I adore her so much. (And also, she is gorgeous ♥.)
I’d love to see her at any point in her life.
- Her early days as a CIA agent—what compromises did she have to make, what kind of morally dubious decisions and grey areas did she have to navigate? I’d love to see her in the field or behind a desk, the missions she takes on the people she knows and the connections she makes.
- Elizabeth as a teacher! How did she come to be a professor, anyway? What’s she like as a teacher, beyond what we see of her? What do her students think of her? Her meeting a former student, maybe, as Secretary of State or as President?
- Elizabeth as Secretary of State or President! Her making difficult decisions, the connections she forms with people, everything about her that canon plays with.
- Elizabeth on the campaign trail! I love what we see of the campaign trail and I’d love to see more of everything—the primaries, the convention, national campaigning, Election Night, the transition; all the ups and downs and the highs and lows of campaigning.

Elizabeth with other people:

First off, a list of people I ship with Elizabeth: Daisy, Henry, Hill, Hurst, Isabelle, Javani, Juliet, Nadine
Elizabeth and Henry! I think they’re super sweet together and I’d love to see them with each other. Their first meeting at (IIRC) UVA, their romance and engagement and marriage, the ups and downs of their relationship, navigating their careers while being with each other and being there for each other.
Elizabeth with her children! I’d particularly love to see her relationship with Stevie, learning how to be friends as two adults with their own passions and ambitions, Elizabeth learning how to let go and Stevie how to deal with her mother’s roles and positions.
Elizabeth and her staff!
- Elizabeth has so many people loyal to her, and a team of people who work really well together, and I love that.
- More on her staff slowly coming to be loyal to her and respect her.
- Elizabeth working with her staff on a delicate/complicated matter, or some obstacle coming up that tests their loyalty to her.
- Blake is one of my favorite characters on the show (next to Elizabeth, of course) and I’d love to see more of his relationship with Elizabeth. How she recruited him, and his loyalty to her and how much he’d give up for her. Or maybe something to do with a boyfriend (old or new) or his fiancé, and a political entanglement that causes him to go to Elizabeth (or try to protect her, or help her out)?
- I love Elizabeth and Mike’s back-and-forth, how he chides and cajoles her and how he sees her potential and who she is but is so much more cynical than her, and I’d love to see more of that relationship.
I’d also love to see Elizabeth’s relationship with her counterparts in other departments/countries, and with various other officials. I’d especially love to see more of her relationship with Dalton and with Russell, and their mutual respect but also how complicated their relationship is.

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A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

Charles Darnay
Sydney Carton

Darnay and Carton, M/M or gen! (For this request, I would prefer to only see the two of them together.)

General setting/novel stuff:

I love the setting of the novel—if you want to play with historical details or etc., then that would be great!
Alternately, for this fandom, I’m a fan of all sorts of AUs, too, especially if the storyline of the book is adapted one way or another
- Darnay and Carton in spaaaaaaaaaaaaace!
- Darnay and Carton as leads of a Regency romance!
- Darnay and Carton in a mystery story, or as detectives!
- Darnay and Carton in a different revolution or war in a different time.
- Actual royalty AUs!
- After the apocalypse
- And other AUs I haven’t DNW’d.
I’d love any sort of ending—fix-its or canon divergence would be great, but I also love angsty/unhappy/bittersweet endings, so if that’s your id, go wild!
Pastiches are great, but if you want to play with a different style, that’s also great (especially for AUs).
Something of the scope of the events that the book manages to capture, the dark and dirty parts of history while at the same time catching the scope and the consequences and the effects of things that happen.
I love other characters I haven’t requested, too (especially Lucie) so please feel free to include them!

Things I like about the characters and their relationship:

Darnay and Carton are such polar opposites of each other, and yet so similar, and I love how much that’s played with and I just love that in general.
Carton’s Angst. I love his angst and martyrdom and his complicated feelings about Lucie and Darnay and himself, and how he’s scattered and self-destructive and just destructive in general, but also underneath that so very loyal and self-sacrificing and sometimes even kind. I just…I love him so much.
And Darnay, too. He’s noble and honorable and loyal too, and just pretty much a great all-round person ♥.
And I love their relationship—their bonding-but-yet-kind of antagonism that they start off with, the whole interplay-but-not-interplay, and then Carton being the first to congratulate Darnay and Carton, the idea of Darnay owing Carton, kind of, and Carton reaching out and wanting to be real friends (which I find kind of adorable, tbh), and of course how he finally gives up everything for Darnay (that ending still gets me EVERY TIME). I just…love everything about their relationship and would love to see it fleshed out, gen and shippy.
If you want to play with how they mirror each other and play off each other and are similar and yet so different I’d love that too!

Prompts etc (can be either gen or shippy unless I’ve specified wanting it to be one or the other):

How does Carton grow closer to Darnay (and Lucie, and Little Lucie) over the years? Missing scenes and stories, maybe, of what their relationship is like, whether warm and close or more antagonistic.
Darnay remembering Carton after his death, what could have been and what was, maybe telling Little Lucie stories about him or reminiscing with Lucie.
AU where Darnay and Carton meet earlier than in canon—how does that happen? What do they think of each other, and how do they interact with each other, without the catalyst of Carton being part of Darnay’s defense? Is the nature of their relationship very different, or is it pretty much the same?
Carton doesn’t die, and they pull off a last-minute rescue/pardon somehow. How do Carton and Darnay deal with a world in which they both live, and especially Darnay after his experiences? Or maybe Darnay is never arrested?
Alternately, Carton isn’t able to save Darnay and Darnay is executed.
Falling for each other and carrying on a relationship given the attitudes and prejudices of the time, overcoming them, dealing with them, and/or coming to terms with their existence, both in themselves and in others.
Selfcest kink!

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The Dragonfly Pool – Eva Ibbotson

Johannes of Bergania
Julia Grantley

Matteo von Tarlenheim
Talitha Hamilton

I'd love to see all four of them together (gen or with the M/M and/or F/F ships), or any of the following combinations: Julia/Tally (or Tally and Julia), Matteo/Johannes, Matteo and Tally, Matteo and Julia and Tally (again, gen or Julia/Tally).

For all four of them together, this would probably have to be an AU (although I'd very much enjoy seeing anything where the four of them all interact together that's canon compliant)

Maybe Matteo manages to unravel the assassination plot before it occurs, or the shot goes wild and misses Johannes (maybe Stilton is less competent than in canon), and the children get to meet the King?
Maybe grown-up Tally and Julia visit Bergania after the war when its people are voting for their first President, and meet the former King?
Maybe the German army invades Bergania, and Johannes has to flee with the aid of the children and of his people?
Maybe Johannes sets up a government-in-exile in London, and when he goes down to Delderton to visit Karil and Matteo, Tally talks to him (and drags Julia along)?
I think Johannes and Tally especially would get along very well, because they both have a similar determination and dedication, and they both have iron wills.
I'd love to see what Matteo makes of Julia and Tally becoming closer to Johannes, or even just meeting Johannes—does it remind him of how much time has passed, or dredge up old memories?
I love Tally's admiration of Johannes, and the friendship between Julia and Tally and the two of them going along with each other's mad ideas, and Tally's and Julia's admiration of their teacher, and Matteo's bond with Johannes, so in seeing all four of them together, that's a lot of what does it for me.

Matteo/Johannes:

I love the tragedy of how they meet again after so many years, but were torn apart mere minutes later. Matteo avoiding Johannes (and all that lost time—did he have regrets, later, after Johannes death?), but Johannes seeing him anyway, how dramatic Johannes was in dragging Matteo out of the crowd, their embrace (like there was no-one else there now that is a shippy moment if I ever saw one), the words they spoke to each other (and I am burningly curious as to what those were), Johannes looking the way he hadn't looked after his wife had died, the friend Johannes loved as a boy, Matteo's 'No!', 'everything' (everything), Matteo's promise, 'the man he had loved beyond all others', Matteo on his knees, just—everything. Everything about that scene. And later—everything about the dragonfly pool scene, too, Matteo's memories and how Karil saw that his father wanted to be with Matteo.
And after—I'd love to see Matteo grieving and trying to deal with Johannes death.
We know that Matteo talked to Magda a lot about Johannes—maybe one of those conversations?
And Karil—how does Matteo see him, entangled as Karil must be in Matteo's feelings about Johannes?
Matteo maybe finding a lover during/after the war, but everything about that lover reminds him of Johannes, or nothing does, and everything is messy and terrible?
>And I very much wouldn't mind seeing a canon divergence AU where Johannes wasn't killed (not shot? Shot, but not fatally?), and they do get to ~~have sex~~ speak to each other later. How do they sort out all the painful things that must lie between them? Do they go back to their individual lives, or do they find a way to stay with each other? What would happen to their relationship during WW2, what with Matteo's work as an intelligence agent (although would that happen if Johannes hadn't died) and Johannes being King?
Or maybe something about their childhoods—I'd love to see Matteo and Johannes doing everything together, maybe including fumbling together as boys?
Or the two of them at university, discovering that their care for each other extended beyond friendship?
Or dealing with the fact that they can't be together fully, because Johannes is going to have marry (and maybe him actually falling for his wife feels like betrayal to Johannes, and it's very complicated there)?
Or Johannes becoming 'cut off', and Matteo's feelings of betrayal at the pamphlet incident and him leaving?
Or Johannes' feelings on Matteo leaving, and the two of them learning to live without each other?
All the politics and/or angst, really, and the two of them figuring out their relationship together.

Tally and Julia: I'd love either gen or femslash for these two; either way, I love the relationship between them in the book and I'd love to see more.

I love all the hurt/comfort between these two in canon, and, gen or femslash, I'd love to see more. Maybe Tally becomes homesick and Julia comforts her, or maybe Julia loses an audition for a role? Or anything heavier would be fine, too. I'd just love all the H/C, please.
Tally doesn't like Golria Grantley at all (although she doesn't say this out loud for Julia's sake); what does she think of the fact that Golria is kind of sort of reaching out towards her daughter at the end of the book? (She's a very good judge of character; how does that factor into it?)
Maybe something about Julia's career as an actress? She probably didn't get roles fresh out of acting school and was probably rejected at auditions—how does she face these rejections, and does Tally's support help? Does she move to a place with a robust film industry? And does Tally follow her, or do they correspond from a distance? Does she go for stage acting, or does she become a movie star like her mother? And I love the play in the book, and the scene where Julia recites a poem in memory of Johannes, so I'd love to see more of that.
And what does Tally do with her Classics degree? Does she go on do postgraduate work and perhaps become a professor? Does she decide to teach, perhaps come back to Delderton? If you go for the femslash option, does the fact that she and Julia are far away from each other and in pursuit of their own careers become an issue?
The years Julia is at acting school and Tally is at Oxford! Do they write letters to each other? (And if so, I'd love to see those letters.) Do they get together with each other, and with the other Delderton students, in the holidays?
Tally was in London during the school holidays at Delderton, helping to clean up after the bombings during the Blitz—was Julia there, too? Were they involved in the rescue efforts? Had they ever been caught outside in an air raid?
And if you're writing femslash, I love friends to lovers, and I'd love to see the growth of Tally's and Julia's relationship into something romantic.
- Do they grow together slowly?
- Is there a sudden moment of realization?
- Do they get together when they're still in school, or afterwards (perhaps during the visit to Bergania)?

For Julia and Matteo and Tally, or Matteo and Tally:

I'd love to see more of Matteo's role as a teacher. I love his teaching style, and I love how much he loves what he's teaching, so I'd love to see more of that.
- Perhaps an early-morning biology lesson?
- Or perhaps, just before Matteo's inauguration, they go on an early-morning tramp again for old times' sake?
I'd also love to see Matteo and Tally (and Julia) meeting during, or after, the war. Does Matteo tell them much of what he's done, or does he think it's too much for them, or is he not allowed to, because it's classified?
Or maybe them in Bergania, just before Matteo's inauguration, catching up with each other?
And does Matteo work with Tally or Julia as President of Bergania, for fundraising or cultural events?
o they visit him after his five years are up, and he's settled in the Berganian countryside or gone back to hiking across the world, or maybe become a diplomat and ambassador for Bergania?

Totally optional crossover ideas:

crossover with anything of Ibbotson's. I especially love The Secret Countess and The Star of Kazan, but these are, of course, completely optional.
A Dark Is Rising crossover where Tally fins out she's an Old One, or Merriman meets Tally and/or Matteo during the wartime.
Or maybe a Chalet School crossover?
Or maybe, and this is a completely, completely optional, a crossover with Agent Carter, with Peggy meeting Matteo during his work for the SOE in the wartime, or meeting Julia and Tally after the war, or maybe Tally being requested for consultancy work at the SSR?

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The Shoes of the Fisherman – Morris West

Jean Télémond
Kamanev
Kiril Lakota

I'd love to see the characters together or in the following combinations: Jean Télémond/Pope Kiril, Pope Kiril/Kamenev (either slash or pre-slash/slashy-but-not-explicit undertones is fine for both of these). I'd also love to see Kiril by himself.

General stuff for this fandom:

I adore the theological discussions in the book, and I love that the characters' faith is tested throughout the book, and I love that Kiril especially struggles with his faith, and any exploration of that would be great. And I love that even when they're steadfast in their beliefs they encounter difficulties convincing others of their beliefs.
I love the loyalty kink and the tests of loyalty and all the powerplays throughout the book, and anything to do with loyalty and power dynamics would be great, honestly.
I also love the politics and questions of trust and faith, and anything you do with that would also be great.
I find the Vatican setting very interesting as well.
I'd also love a look at Vatican politics/world politics (and the fact that although it's a work of fiction West absolutely lets what exactly he thinks of world politics of that time shine through is great and I very much approve and love it)
I also found the details of Vatican culture and the traditions of Catholicism very well-researched and portrayed, so if you want to go along those lines, that'd also be great.
In particular, the politics are very idealistic because the characters are very idealistic, but they're also very nuanced, and I love that! But I also love the manipulations and go-betweens and cloak-and-daggerness of it all. And I also love the theme of reconciling Catholicism with the modern world (and, in Jean Télémond's case, with science), and how that's not always successful, but also sometimes works.

Kiril's relationship with Jean Télémond:

I love the loyalty and the trust there, and I love the power dynamics, but most of all I love that they both respect each other, and I love the fact that there's so much caught up in the relationship between them. Jean's death was inevitable, but the impotency of their parting and 'even with loving, a man must die alone' utterly broke me. And I love, love, love that final scene with Jean when Kiril has to give him the news of the review board, and then the scene afterwards with Calitri, 'I love him in the spirit and in the flesh'.
What would happen if Kiril met Jean before he became the Pope?
Or, I'd love to see a gapfiller, a moment between them before the news of the review board.
Or perhaps Kiril grieving for Jean.
Or, what would happen if Jean was a younger man, closer in age to Kiril?

And Kiril and Kamenev:

I love the complex dynamic between them, and I love Kiril's trust in his former torturer, and I love that the trust between them was created in the first place, and I love Kamanev's grudging respect that is said to have become not-so-grudging. There are so many hints at a story there, and I want to know more. I want to see their shared history, and I want to know what went on between them.
I'd love to see Kamanev's torture of Kiril, or perhaps the point at which he began to identify with/respect Kiril, and the same happened to Kiril.
Or I'd love to see more of the correspondence between them.
Or maybe even Kamenev meeting Kiril at some point in the future.

Jean Télémond, Kamenev, and Kiril all in one fic would be very interesting.

You can do this as the two loves of Kiril's life, of course, and I'd adore seeing that.
I'd also love seeing them actually in one room, too, though this would obviously have to be an AU of some sort (Jean Télémond living to some point beyond canon?).
What would Kamenev and Jean Télémond make of each other? What would they make of each other's relationship with Kiril?

Kiril alone:

Kiril's idealism and his faith are one of my favourite things about this book, how he doubts and wavers but remains steadfast, how he's able to carry on and do what, to him, is the right thing despite his doubts.
And I love that he's so very human and he has human flaws and weaknesses, but he's also very aware of his own faults, even if only in hindsight. And I love how wry and self-aware he is, and how he's humble but can also be very commanding if the situation necessitates, and above all I love his empathy.
I'd love to see him before he became Pontiff, back in his country or when he got the news that he was appointed Cardinal.
Or I'd love to see more of him meeting the people living in the Vatican, going among the faithful. Or maybe something post-canon, world politics or Vatican politics?
Or maybe him with the members of his Council?

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