Not Prime Time 2015: Dear Author Letter
Hello hello!
Thank you for writing for me! I hope this match is okay for you and you can find something you like/something that’s inspiring. The letter is TL;DR-y, but I want to emphasize upfront that I will most probably like/love basically anything that doesn’t hit my squicks and at least tries to play with some of my favorite characters and tropes. This is meant to be only a guide to what I like (which is a pretty wide-ranging and flexible field), and playing around/remixing is totally fine as long as it avoids the squicks. (All my “prompts” are mostly just brainstorming, and if you have something involving the characters you really want to do that doesn’t hit my DNWs, feel free.) Also, I’ve tried to provide a decent range of both nonshippy/nonexplicit and shippy/explicit/porny--anything I like in general I also like sexually, and if you’re not comfortable with anything super shippy or porny, feel free to tone it down.
Where else I can be found
AO3: theoldgods
Tumblr: theoldgods (my general post on ships and favs/DNWs is here)
Twitter: minebyrights
[General Likes and Dislikes]
Likes
Any level of explicitness is fine, from platonic relationships to really basic shy flirtation/chemistry to full-on explicit porn (as long as it doesn’t hit my porn squicks listed below). In general I prefer things that stick fairly close to the canon tone and canon events (although spec fic/future fic is fine), but do feel free to tone down or jettison entirely any blatant homophobia, racism, etc in the source material.
General
--Worldbuilding
--Female friendships
--m/f platonic but intense friendships
--The classic Holmes/Watson dynamic wherein someone with a very high IQ but shit emotional quotient learns from/becomes bosom buddies with someone with a high emotional quotient (especially if it becomes clear that they’re not so different after all)
--Undercover work and casefic where applicable
--Bedsharing and huddling for warmth
--Pretending to be in a relationship or married
--Clever (and also sometimes just silly) bickering and bantering like old marrieds
--Honorporn/dutyporn/angsting over decisions of same
--Clothing and hand descriptions (I’m especially fond of period clothing, boots, and men in kilts/skirts/whatever)
--“You’re the only person who understands X part of me and i’m the only person who understands Y part of you!”
--Bathing/cleaning each other
--Adrenaline junkies/partners in crime
--Daemons, whether in HDM fic or not
--Snow/anything set in winter
--Shared living situations
--Found families
--5+1s/vignettes if they’re thematically connected and characters evolve in some way across them
--Age differences in relationships (if they’re sexual, please have everyone be adults)
Specifically sexual
--One character is dressed (the fancier the better) and the other isn’t
--Clothed or semiclothed sex
--Coming in pants
--Consensual cousin or sibling incest
--Dubcon, especially of the drunken/sex pollen variety
--Public or nearly-public sex and related elements of exhibitionism/voyeurism
--Codependency
--Elements of BDSM (i.e. light bondage and some whipping), especially involving mouthy, subby men who need the aggression fucked out of them, although I don’t really like formalized D/s relationships where one character always plays the same role in relation to the other
--Casual/reluctant tops/doms who are nonetheless caring
--Topping from the bottom
--Shower/bath sex
--Frottage/dry humping/intercrural/otherwise nonpenetrative sex
--Dirty talk
--Oral, especially cunnilingus
--Threesomes, especially m/m/m or m/m/f
--Masturbation, both solo and mutual
Dislikes
General
--first or second person POV
--Pregnancy/childfic (this includes mpreg)
--Death fic
--Really, really dark/angsty stuff (I don’t mind touching on darkness/angst, but overall I’m into at least ambiguously positive endings when it comes to fic)
--Horror/gore
--Character bashing in general (even of characters I’m not fond of), but especially bashing of canonical love interests in the background of noncanon ship fics
--AUs, especially modern AUs of historical/fantasy settings; future spec fic or canon divergence is fine, but I’m usually into canons because I like their worldbuilding the way it is and want to play in that world. (EXCEPTION TO THIS IS DAEMON AUs--I absolutely love daemons and don’t mind them being integrated into non-HDM worlds.)
--Tentacles
--Body horror/extreme body modification
Specifically sexual
--Omegaverse
--Rape/noncon
--Bodily fluids/watersports
--Parent-child incest
--Pedophilia/kinking on how youthful-looking characters are (in general, if the character isn’t at least 16 or 17, please nothing harder than kissing, unless you intentionally age them up)
--Anything touching on the humiliation of women, even just for kink. Sub women are fine as long as it doesn’t get into humiliation porn or anything too overtly heteronormative/“big strong man ravishing delicate woman who just lays there and takes it”
[Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)]
Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Harry Hart, Merlin (Kingsman)
I love basically everything about this movie, but Harry and Merlin and their potential shared past are one of my favorite parts. I’d love your interpretation of their early days, how they met, who joined Kingsman first if you have a headcanon for that, whatever. I’d love to see them on any sort of mission fic, if you can swing it, especially if it involves one or the other getting hurt and some comfort arising from that. Or even just some hurt/comfort in general, not necessarily arising from a mission. (Does not need to be sexual if you don’t romantically ship them, though sex is always appreciated if you want to include it.) Or how about seeing them doing something profoundly non-spy-like and fumbling through it? (Having to shop for something, or going on a non-work vacation, or going swimming, or….)
I’m fond of banter between them, Merlin in kilts for even the flimsiest of reasons, spy BFFs/husbands interactions, Harry’s shoulders and dressing gown, awkward younger versions of them, late in life friendships/romances, and basically anything similar. I also love the other characters in the movie, so feel free to have them around as well, and if you want to fill in familial or threesome+ sexual relationships with Eggsy or Roxy or both, feel free! I just ask that it remain centered around these two (and doesn’t become a “Merlin sets Harry up with Eggsy” fic).
[Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen]
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Elizabeth Bennet, Fitzwilliam Darcy
I love their wickedness with one another, how Darcy comes to love Elizabeth for her spirit and Elizabeth brings out some humor (and genial politeness) in him. Maybe a miniature inappropriate prankwar they get into with one another? Or them swimming in the lake at Pemberley (and causing trouble)? Maybe Elizabeth discovers Darcy has a certain thing for being tied up (begins in jest, turns sexual or not as per your preference)? Maybe they go farther, sexually/romantically, than they strictly should, all things considered, while they’re engaged but before they’re formally married? Pretty much anything that focuses on the fun side of them would be amazing. Feel free to mention children/their wider household, but as I’m not much interested in either pregnancy or fic with kids, please keep those elements marginal. Bonus points for judicious use of cravats as bondage implements, bottom/sub!Darcy, frottage while mostly still fully clothed, Elizabeth pegging Darcy (or whatever the period equivalent would be), and loving descriptions of waistcoats and boots.
Austen’s humor/satire is always one of my favorite parts of reading her, so the more you can work that cheekiness in, the better. I’m overall not a version snob and have seen 1995, 2005, and DCTP and enjoyed them all in some way or another, but my mental images of characters/characterizations are Firth and Ehle (although I do also like elements of equally!awkward!nerds Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam and the whole scene in the dawn/the end kissing scene from the 2005 movie).
[A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin]
A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Jon Snow, Melisandre of Asshai
My favorite part of the Jon/Mel relationship is the whole messiah/priest dynamic, whether the characters really know it or not, so on the ship/porn side of things I’d love them being vaguely hatesex-y before the end of ADWD or being awkward and yet slightly reverent post-ADWD (what would Jon look like? How would he behave after resurrection? Would he be warged into Ghost for a while first and how would that affect their dynamics after?). I’d love, in general, anything surrounding their tension and the themes of ice vs. fire (both literal and metaphorical), the power of the Old Gods vs. R’hllor, Melisandre discovering that Jon is The Droid She’s Been Looking For (and how she deals or doesn’t deal with that), Melisandre resurrecting Jon in whatever way you see fit, Jon angsting about the priestess and how he hates and yet is drawn to her before or after his “death,” and so on and so forth.
ASOIAF is, as my tumblr attests, possibly still my main fandom after 4+ years, so there’s a lot to plunder. I love the worldbuilding and the gloriously fantastic physical realm of Westeros, especially in the north and beyond the Wall; I love questions of magic and religion and the relationship between the two (my headcanon is that magic is real, albeit rare, and religion is a way of channelling/making sense of it, but I’m very open to other options), especially as it touches on the Old Gods/the potential of some sort of pantheistic thing. I love duty- and honorporn, especially for Jon, and kinking on weird/twisted/grudging loyalty, as well as insecurities that come about when something you took as a given or a sure thing may not be such after all (Mel?). Other characters are welcome to come play in the background, especially other members of the Watch and Stannis/Selyse/Shireen/Davos.
[Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)]
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Bill Haydon, Jim Prideaux
Oh god, literally anything for them is amazing, but I’d especially love some sort of WWII or its immediate aftermath fic for them (where they’re spies but shit hasn’t yet come close to hitting the fan). What were they like immediately after the war? Did they see each other often? What were their reunions like if they were apart? Younger versions of themselves working the southern Mediterranean networks (as suggested in the book) would be great--maybe they take a break off work and do something silly together (but can’t quite stop the whole spy thing nonetheless)? I’d also love to see them with a third (Peter? Even just some random OC they pick up) and see Jim watching and getting off on Bill being with someone else (since I personally think Jim is fine with Bill’s many sexual indiscretions and it’s the other infidelity that hurts).
I love the book and the 2011 movie and often sort of cobble them both together in my mind--if you do as well, that’s completely fine. I’m especially interested in how potentially “deviant” sexuality interacts with being a spy in 30s-70s UK, how friendships form (and are strained) among spies, what the emotional/sexual consequences of living a double life are (both in terms of spy vs. civilian and in terms of moles/USSR vs. UK), and similar. Aesthetically, I’m in love with the 2011 movie’s entire production design, suit porn (especially for Bill), secrecy, and emotionally distraught men keeping up a brave face (and, potentially, eventually breaking). Also, this is one canon I’d particularly enjoy seeing a daemon AU applied to, if you’re familiar with His Dark Materials (How would daemons change spycraft? Would spies all have very unnoticeable daemons? Would spies all belong to a class of people whose daemons never fully settle, but they keep that hidden from average civilians? What would the repercussions of all this be?), but that is of course completely, extra optional.
Thank you again, and any questions, feel free to ask the mods or get in touch with me anon somehow if you really need to!