'tis the season
Dear Yuletide author,
Thanks in advance for picking up one of my prompts! We're already off to a rollicking start. Furthermore, you're pretty much off the hook as ratings go-no restrictions, no complaints. You're freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Barring: mpreg, pregnancy in general...even children in general, really. Oh, and also character bashing-these characters are on offer because I love them!-and particularly on a sexual level; let's stay out of slut-shaming terrain, obviously, and rape, even more obviously, I should think.
On the flipside, all-purpose weaknesses include SPIES, the Cold War (when in doubt, Cold War AU?), all AUs really (EVERYTHING NEEDS A THEATRE AU, EVERYTHING), stories/scenes in hotels, all the noir tropes that ever were, lipstick, globe-trotting, general moral ambiguity and sharp edges, mirroring, PHYSICALITY, HANDS, people in conscious physical orbit, dancing (SUCH A BALLROOM KINK), literary references (esp. ALL THE SHAKESPEARE, am shameless), theatre, performativity, false identities (and explorations of both playing along with and seeing through them), masks (figurative and literal), elegance in decay, escapists, and generally people who know what they want and don't apologize for it.
Which brings me to: THE REQUESTS.
PAN AM (Colette, Dean, Kate, Maggie {implicitly: ALL THE OTHERS BUT TED})
Colette-centric, Colette/Dean, anything and everything. ALTERNATELY: spy shenanigans. ALTERNATELY ALTERNATELY: four-woman con team AU?
(Favorite new show!)
Predominantly: I would like Colette. I would like all of the Colette: Colette in Paris, Colette anywhere, Colette backstory, Colette present, Colette for all seasons. Colette/Dean is wonderful to me because it is largely about how Colette is wonderful, and I want them doing the samba in Brazil (CARNAVAL FEELINGS?), I want them cohabiting a flat in Paris and being terriblemazing makeshift domestics with a sinkful of empty champagne bottles and a fridgeful of nothing, I want them in and out of cities and streetlights and rain-slicked streets and cocktail nights and constant dancing. I just love Colette more than I love most things, and there is really no wrong you can do here. You've literally got the whole world to work from. Second: I DO LOVE THE RIDICULOUS COLD WAR SHENANIGANS, clearly. I ship Kate quite gleefully with just about anyone in proximity-all her spymasters though the MI6 is probably my fave; the Niko bit gave me Feelings™ and I'd be more than welcome to fic about them meeting on the London layover and playing anonymity in public and fucking away their feelings in private (I mean quoi); also her sister a bit because why not-and her whole inept Jane Bond deal is more than fun to me. Honestly, at times this plane feels like it's simply full of Bond girl tropes (aka faves!) sans Bond, and that's one of my favorite things about it. Which brings me to my AU desires, most of all: the Maggie-centred episode gave me a serious yen for a con woman foursome that hasn't yet dimmed, and if you wrote me that, I would love you forever.
(Incidentally, my rule about character bashing has one inbuilt exception and that is here: you are free to kill off Ted. I mean, don't feel obliged to! But if the idea of, say, a theater mobster AU where the ladies met rising stars on the plane and got involved with the-mob-behind-the-spotlight shenanigans and oh so sad Ted tries to whiteknight some ingenue and gets, oops, shot!-perhaps followed by a funeral with veils and griefsex in posh hotel bathrooms or somesuch-if such an AU was to speak to your soul, who would I be to stop you?)
DOWNTON ABBEY (Mary, Matthew, Lavinia)
Would "shamelessly Hemingway AU with THREESOMES in the Jazz Age" be too much to ask?
Oh, lord. I had a very mixed reaction to this season-well, not mixed so much as a lot of WHY-and I've decided to say, fuck canon, let's go AU. So let's! Let's take all the Hemingway nonsense that the show pulled and take it at face value and take it far. Here's what I propose: Matthew's paralysed (properly), Lavinia's alive (HONESTLY), Patrick Crawley comes back (actually), and with the inheritance off their collective backs, Matthew and Mary and Lavinia go to London and get a flat and live together in a marriage of scandal and convenience in the Jazz Age. I just want twenties threesomes! And what magnificent potential's inherent there, right? Say-Lavinia pursuing a career by day, Mary as a destructive Zelda Fitzgerald sort of escapist by night, Matthew in their revolving care and in equal but separate love with the pair of them...really anything you can do with this scenario is something I'd like to see.
THE DISREPUTABLE HISTORY OF FRANKIE LANDAU-BANKS (Frankie, Alpha)
THE DISREPUTABLE FUTURE, PLEASE. (Frankie/Alpha makeouts optional but enthusiastically encouraged.)
(I have to say: god bless the person who put this up on the list; freaked right out the minute I saw it.) I love the boarding school shenanigans but really now I'm dying for the disreputable future of Frankie Landau-Banks: spy, supervillainess, con woman, Carmen Sandiego? The world is your oyster, here; that girl is capable of anything. And I would love, love to see some Alpha in there, constantly running into her life, whether from the same or opposite sides (ALSO MAKEOUTS). Would love globe-trotting, would love tense dialogues in cafés and as much filmic shamelessness and Thomas Crown shit as you care to revel in. (WHAT WAS THAT I SAID ABOUT COLD WAR AUS? WHY NOT.)
HENRY VI (Margaret d'Anjou)
Margaret-centric, any and all things. (Margaret/Suffolk FEELINGS, inevitable.) Also, AUs in this fandom are always the best thing, too-theatre? Cold War? Go nuts. Either way, no tonal preference here: anything from high tragedy to BRIEF BEAUTIFUL MARGARET/SUFFOLK MOMENTS IN THE SUN shall do.
SHE IS MY FAVORITE ALL THE TIME, from her scheming ambitious youthful ascendancy in the court to her beautiful broken bloodthirsty battle leadership (gosh is that a lot of alliteration). I love that she's this inexhaustible force right to the bitter end, and the VI has always really been her play to me-her arc, her galvanic desires, her high-tragedy rise-and-fall. Adjacent to this, Margaret/Suffolk happens to be one of my favourite ships in Shakespeare, revolving around her: it's got the Beatrice/Benedick wit (with added Shakespearean metacomedy, see: I love VI1.V.III so much it is disgusting), the Macbeths' marriage-of-equals-in-political-schemery, and all the high poetic lushness you could wish for (RUL'D LIKE A WANDERING PLANET); it is basically a sea of perfection while it lasts and an amazing tragic catalyst when it's cut short, and even if you don't write me Ship Fic, it seems rather inevitable that the feelings from that relationship will structure her no matter what. I'm also riveted by her and Henry's marriage, which is genuinely sad to me on basically every emotional level whilst being fascinating on every political one, and if you're writing midwar fic, her relationship with Clifford is stunning re. Suffolk dualities and things that read as clear emotional substutution to me (THINGS THAT SHOULD ALWAYS BE DOUBLECAST IN PERFORMANCE IF YOU ARE DOING DOUBLECAST; sorry, tangent). But though I love her perfectly constructed and evoked tragedy, this fandom is also hilarious and supercreative, and if you want to do AUs or ridiculous one-off riffs of whatever you so choose, I trust you absolutely.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Terribly excited for the end product of it all.
Thanks in advance for picking up one of my prompts! We're already off to a rollicking start. Furthermore, you're pretty much off the hook as ratings go-no restrictions, no complaints. You're freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Barring: mpreg, pregnancy in general...even children in general, really. Oh, and also character bashing-these characters are on offer because I love them!-and particularly on a sexual level; let's stay out of slut-shaming terrain, obviously, and rape, even more obviously, I should think.
On the flipside, all-purpose weaknesses include SPIES, the Cold War (when in doubt, Cold War AU?), all AUs really (EVERYTHING NEEDS A THEATRE AU, EVERYTHING), stories/scenes in hotels, all the noir tropes that ever were, lipstick, globe-trotting, general moral ambiguity and sharp edges, mirroring, PHYSICALITY, HANDS, people in conscious physical orbit, dancing (SUCH A BALLROOM KINK), literary references (esp. ALL THE SHAKESPEARE, am shameless), theatre, performativity, false identities (and explorations of both playing along with and seeing through them), masks (figurative and literal), elegance in decay, escapists, and generally people who know what they want and don't apologize for it.
Which brings me to: THE REQUESTS.
PAN AM (Colette, Dean, Kate, Maggie {implicitly: ALL THE OTHERS BUT TED})
Colette-centric, Colette/Dean, anything and everything. ALTERNATELY: spy shenanigans. ALTERNATELY ALTERNATELY: four-woman con team AU?
(Favorite new show!)
Predominantly: I would like Colette. I would like all of the Colette: Colette in Paris, Colette anywhere, Colette backstory, Colette present, Colette for all seasons. Colette/Dean is wonderful to me because it is largely about how Colette is wonderful, and I want them doing the samba in Brazil (CARNAVAL FEELINGS?), I want them cohabiting a flat in Paris and being terriblemazing makeshift domestics with a sinkful of empty champagne bottles and a fridgeful of nothing, I want them in and out of cities and streetlights and rain-slicked streets and cocktail nights and constant dancing. I just love Colette more than I love most things, and there is really no wrong you can do here. You've literally got the whole world to work from. Second: I DO LOVE THE RIDICULOUS COLD WAR SHENANIGANS, clearly. I ship Kate quite gleefully with just about anyone in proximity-all her spymasters though the MI6 is probably my fave; the Niko bit gave me Feelings™ and I'd be more than welcome to fic about them meeting on the London layover and playing anonymity in public and fucking away their feelings in private (I mean quoi); also her sister a bit because why not-and her whole inept Jane Bond deal is more than fun to me. Honestly, at times this plane feels like it's simply full of Bond girl tropes (aka faves!) sans Bond, and that's one of my favorite things about it. Which brings me to my AU desires, most of all: the Maggie-centred episode gave me a serious yen for a con woman foursome that hasn't yet dimmed, and if you wrote me that, I would love you forever.
(Incidentally, my rule about character bashing has one inbuilt exception and that is here: you are free to kill off Ted. I mean, don't feel obliged to! But if the idea of, say, a theater mobster AU where the ladies met rising stars on the plane and got involved with the-mob-behind-the-spotlight shenanigans and oh so sad Ted tries to whiteknight some ingenue and gets, oops, shot!-perhaps followed by a funeral with veils and griefsex in posh hotel bathrooms or somesuch-if such an AU was to speak to your soul, who would I be to stop you?)
DOWNTON ABBEY (Mary, Matthew, Lavinia)
Would "shamelessly Hemingway AU with THREESOMES in the Jazz Age" be too much to ask?
Oh, lord. I had a very mixed reaction to this season-well, not mixed so much as a lot of WHY-and I've decided to say, fuck canon, let's go AU. So let's! Let's take all the Hemingway nonsense that the show pulled and take it at face value and take it far. Here's what I propose: Matthew's paralysed (properly), Lavinia's alive (HONESTLY), Patrick Crawley comes back (actually), and with the inheritance off their collective backs, Matthew and Mary and Lavinia go to London and get a flat and live together in a marriage of scandal and convenience in the Jazz Age. I just want twenties threesomes! And what magnificent potential's inherent there, right? Say-Lavinia pursuing a career by day, Mary as a destructive Zelda Fitzgerald sort of escapist by night, Matthew in their revolving care and in equal but separate love with the pair of them...really anything you can do with this scenario is something I'd like to see.
THE DISREPUTABLE HISTORY OF FRANKIE LANDAU-BANKS (Frankie, Alpha)
THE DISREPUTABLE FUTURE, PLEASE. (Frankie/Alpha makeouts optional but enthusiastically encouraged.)
(I have to say: god bless the person who put this up on the list; freaked right out the minute I saw it.) I love the boarding school shenanigans but really now I'm dying for the disreputable future of Frankie Landau-Banks: spy, supervillainess, con woman, Carmen Sandiego? The world is your oyster, here; that girl is capable of anything. And I would love, love to see some Alpha in there, constantly running into her life, whether from the same or opposite sides (ALSO MAKEOUTS). Would love globe-trotting, would love tense dialogues in cafés and as much filmic shamelessness and Thomas Crown shit as you care to revel in. (WHAT WAS THAT I SAID ABOUT COLD WAR AUS? WHY NOT.)
HENRY VI (Margaret d'Anjou)
Margaret-centric, any and all things. (Margaret/Suffolk FEELINGS, inevitable.) Also, AUs in this fandom are always the best thing, too-theatre? Cold War? Go nuts. Either way, no tonal preference here: anything from high tragedy to BRIEF BEAUTIFUL MARGARET/SUFFOLK MOMENTS IN THE SUN shall do.
SHE IS MY FAVORITE ALL THE TIME, from her scheming ambitious youthful ascendancy in the court to her beautiful broken bloodthirsty battle leadership (gosh is that a lot of alliteration). I love that she's this inexhaustible force right to the bitter end, and the VI has always really been her play to me-her arc, her galvanic desires, her high-tragedy rise-and-fall. Adjacent to this, Margaret/Suffolk happens to be one of my favourite ships in Shakespeare, revolving around her: it's got the Beatrice/Benedick wit (with added Shakespearean metacomedy, see: I love VI1.V.III so much it is disgusting), the Macbeths' marriage-of-equals-in-political-schemery, and all the high poetic lushness you could wish for (RUL'D LIKE A WANDERING PLANET); it is basically a sea of perfection while it lasts and an amazing tragic catalyst when it's cut short, and even if you don't write me Ship Fic, it seems rather inevitable that the feelings from that relationship will structure her no matter what. I'm also riveted by her and Henry's marriage, which is genuinely sad to me on basically every emotional level whilst being fascinating on every political one, and if you're writing midwar fic, her relationship with Clifford is stunning re. Suffolk dualities and things that read as clear emotional substutution to me (THINGS THAT SHOULD ALWAYS BE DOUBLECAST IN PERFORMANCE IF YOU ARE DOING DOUBLECAST; sorry, tangent). But though I love her perfectly constructed and evoked tragedy, this fandom is also hilarious and supercreative, and if you want to do AUs or ridiculous one-off riffs of whatever you so choose, I trust you absolutely.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Terribly excited for the end product of it all.