Yuletide letter
Dear yuletide author,
I am so sorry again that my letter is late up! I didn't know that assignments would go out so soon and also I procrastinated like a fool. I haven't included a lot of generic info on what I like/don't like because I'm generally pretty open-minded. I think my only hard 'no's are mpreg, non-con and a/b/o. One day I will level up and become one of those awesome people who has a whole long list of everything they've ever loved in fic ever. Hopefully the details for each fandom will give you a flavour though! They're mostly fairly vague, so feel free to use whatever you see there that's of interest as inspiration and ignore the rest.
Rivers of London
Peter Grant, Thomas Nightingale
I moved to London a few years ago and read the first Rivers of London book shortly after I'd moved. My immediate feeling reading them was stupid excitement at the fact that I had been to a lot of those places and that Peter's loving but not remotely idealised version of London rang true to me, even as someone who has known life outside the Big Smoke and grew up somewhere closer to the Herefordshire village of Foxglove Summer than to Peter's beloved home within the boundary of the M25.
That said, I definitely value the books for more than just the novelty of their setting. Who could fail to be taken in by Peter as a narrator? And then there's the fact that Peter has this amazing rapport with a backwards-ageing, card-carrying magical DI whom he initially thinks is trying to pick him up and with whom he lives. And they have these stupidly complementary skills and fantastic banter and they never talk about their actual issues but they show plenty of appreciation of one another. And, yes, I ship it. But I am also fine with gen here, too, since it is equally shippable when they are just being themselves in canon.
Which brings me to - things I think are/would be awesome in Rivers of London fic:
- Peter being surprisingly competent and Nightingale not being surprised at all.
- Any kind of awkward grudging acknowledgement that feelings are a thing (which, let's be honest, they'd pretty much both be able to do less than grudgingly in other circumstances, they're both just not quite comfortable pushing forward with the thing between them given the power/status structures they're embedded in). This could include: Peter making a bit of an unintentional confession and having a freak out and ultimately having to have Nightingale talk him down, or some kind of established relationship fic where they consider how they got to be in that place.
- I've always wanted to write a sort of ridiculous future fic about the implications of the whole backwards-ageing thing on their relationship. I have this image of Peter looking in a mirror one day and realising that Nightingale looks younger than him now. Hell, maybe Peter ages backwards, too, after a while, maybe they keep ageing back and forth for centuries. Who knows. So, if this interests you too, go for it.
- Casefic is of course one of the most treasured and wonderful things in this fandom - because who doesn't want to see Peter and Nightingale doing what they do best and solving magical crime? So, if you have the patience and desire to write a wonderful mystery about queer goings on in Londontown (or anywhere else for that matter), go right ahead.
Some other things/tropes that I really love in this fandom are:
- Unsurprisingly, based on the above: London things! Though if you don't know much about London, don't feel you have to do a load of research just for this.
- Like just about everyone in this fandom, I am totally behind hurt/comfort for this ship, whether it's Nightingale's recovery from the end of book 1 or Peter being sad or wounded, it's all good.
Philadelphia Flyers RPF
Danny Briere, Claude Giroux
Don't shoot me, but I'm a Penguins fan. I don't know how I ended up liking players from the Flyers but, whatever, it happened. It's probably because of my not-so secret love of French-speakers and because Danny Briere is just such a prince and all-round classy guy while Claude just seems like a decent regular goofball. Also, I mean, c'mon, they lived together and sent couples Christmas cards. They are just too likable (and shippable) to resist.
I should also probably mention that I love ice hockey an absurd amount and it is a major part of my life. As in, I took up playing a couple of years ago after I got into the NHL and now it eats up most of my spare time. So feel free to throw in as much in-depth hockey stuff as you see fit - because I will get it and love it. But I am equally cool with fic that is about the characters and carefully sidesteps too much hockey talk - so don't worry if you get confused about what the difference between forechecking and backchecking is or whatever. It's all good.
Things I love about these two are the age difference, the kind of found-family thing they have going on, the long and gloriously long timescale of their relationship at this point. With that in mind, some ideas/prompts/thoughts you are free to ignore:
I like the idea of fic which explores their relationship after Danny has retired. Is Claude a factor in his decision to come back to Philly? Are they together already/do they get together afterwards? How does that dynamic work and how does Danny deal with being done with his playing career? And, looking to the future: will Claude ever win a Cup and how will Danny be involved in that?
As I alluded to above, I am all for them getting together at any point in the history of their acquaintance. Does it happen when Claude is living with Danny or before or after? Do they break it off for a while before or after Danny gets traded? I'd also be happy with some alternate reality divergence where some of those events go differently - Claude never moves out or Danny never gets traded or Claude is the one who ends up somewhere else. I am all for some degree of angst and uncertainty with these two - though I'd prefer they make it up in the end.
One thing I think would be a lot of fun with these two would also be some kind of time travel fic. Maybe Claude goes to a hockey summer camp when he's 17 only somehow he ends up 10 years in the past and he's the same age as Danny and something happens between them but then, afterwards, Claude is back in his proper time and Danny is grown up and married and how terrifying is it for both of them when they end up back on the same team... Or maybe Danny just finds himself falling out of time sometimes and is incredibly surprised to find out that Claude ends up their captain and they end up together - and maybe that's really the only reason why he actually lets himself start looking at Claude that way in the first place.
Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy
Bill Haydon, Jim Prideaux
Oh god, do I have to tell you how these to left me bruised and ruined and so, so empty and sad? Do I have to tell you how best friends who betray each other is my personal favourite dynamic and the Achilles' heel of my emotional stability? Because I think you can probably infer that just from the fact that I ship this.
This is a fandom that I never properly let myself get into because I have such intense feelings about their relationship in the source material (both the novel and the film adaptation - I'm afraid I've not seen the TV series). For the most part, I've just let the big hole they tore in my heart stay there and I pick at it sometimes, on my own. The few fics I've read have been beautiful though, so I thought I'd request that you rip another little hole in my heart. Here are some thoughts about how you might do it:
- I once half-wrote a story (a draft I'll probably never post or finish) about Jim saving Bill instead of killing him and their having to live with the fall-out of it all, their own not-quite happily ever after - because it's not as though they could ever truly break away. If you wanted to make that a thing, too, man, it would hurt me but it would be wonderful to see.
- I'd love to see the happier days, too. The Cambridge days or the first days at the Circus, when they were the inseparables for all that Bill was certainly still Bill then and far from the perfect person to tie oneself to (but you don't have to mention that if you'd prefer to pretend, or if you think Jim would).
- Or write me some kind of canon divergent AU, a what-if, a what-if-Jim-always-knew, a what-if-he-never-knew, something like that. A what-if Jim stayed pretending to be dead and Bill got away and found him and, somehow, Jim never knew they were living a lie. Or, hell, what if Bill was still Bill but wasn't the mole or might've been but someone else got caught and, really, what's the difference?
The Accountant
Christian Wolff, Braxton
When I watched this movie, I fully expected it to just be another dumb action movie. Though, as linndechir pointed out to me, at least one in which Ben Affleck murders a guy using a belt. Yeah, that was hot. I also expected the accountancy element to be badly done in a Hollywood way.(It kind of was - that whole big whiteboard thing that Christian does to detect fraud at the client: any ordinary computer with some marginally specialist software or a nicely rigged spreadsheet can do it in minutes. Trust me, I have done it.) What I didn't expect was how great the characters were, how engrossing the backstory was, and how it would give me a whole new fraternal incest ship. Yes please!
Did I say already how great these characters are? You have Braxton who is broken and sassy and can't shut up, who hurts people for a living but still bizarrely has principles about it. And Christian, whose principles seem to make a lot more sense because they're more obviously a big part of who is he, but who somehow still ended up on the wrong side of the law anyway, at least on the face of things. And they're the product of this weird, twisted upbringing but, from the one scene they have together, they seem to normalise each other more than anything. There is still this incredible degree of intimacy there which you don't see in any of their other interactions in the movie.
I would love to see fic which explores:
How their childhood made them the way they are - did they each struggle with different parts of it?
How did they cope in the army? Were they together?
If you are on board with making it shippy, how and when did they realise they wanted each other? When did they act on it? Did they ever act on it? Or is the 10 year separation the thing which makes them confront it?
Do they have the post-canon reunion? How does that work? Do they stay in touch? I am all for a cute happy ending for the pair of them but equally could see Christian keeping his distance to keep Brax safe and Braxton rebelling and calling bullshit on that.
I'm all in for fic which explores how Christian's issues with sensory overload, etc, might complicate their relationship - or how, maybe, it doesn't for them like it would for Chris with other people, since he trusts his brother and they know each other's limits.
Have a lovely festive season!
I am so sorry again that my letter is late up! I didn't know that assignments would go out so soon and also I procrastinated like a fool. I haven't included a lot of generic info on what I like/don't like because I'm generally pretty open-minded. I think my only hard 'no's are mpreg, non-con and a/b/o. One day I will level up and become one of those awesome people who has a whole long list of everything they've ever loved in fic ever. Hopefully the details for each fandom will give you a flavour though! They're mostly fairly vague, so feel free to use whatever you see there that's of interest as inspiration and ignore the rest.
Rivers of London
Peter Grant, Thomas Nightingale
I moved to London a few years ago and read the first Rivers of London book shortly after I'd moved. My immediate feeling reading them was stupid excitement at the fact that I had been to a lot of those places and that Peter's loving but not remotely idealised version of London rang true to me, even as someone who has known life outside the Big Smoke and grew up somewhere closer to the Herefordshire village of Foxglove Summer than to Peter's beloved home within the boundary of the M25.
That said, I definitely value the books for more than just the novelty of their setting. Who could fail to be taken in by Peter as a narrator? And then there's the fact that Peter has this amazing rapport with a backwards-ageing, card-carrying magical DI whom he initially thinks is trying to pick him up and with whom he lives. And they have these stupidly complementary skills and fantastic banter and they never talk about their actual issues but they show plenty of appreciation of one another. And, yes, I ship it. But I am also fine with gen here, too, since it is equally shippable when they are just being themselves in canon.
Which brings me to - things I think are/would be awesome in Rivers of London fic:
- Peter being surprisingly competent and Nightingale not being surprised at all.
- Any kind of awkward grudging acknowledgement that feelings are a thing (which, let's be honest, they'd pretty much both be able to do less than grudgingly in other circumstances, they're both just not quite comfortable pushing forward with the thing between them given the power/status structures they're embedded in). This could include: Peter making a bit of an unintentional confession and having a freak out and ultimately having to have Nightingale talk him down, or some kind of established relationship fic where they consider how they got to be in that place.
- I've always wanted to write a sort of ridiculous future fic about the implications of the whole backwards-ageing thing on their relationship. I have this image of Peter looking in a mirror one day and realising that Nightingale looks younger than him now. Hell, maybe Peter ages backwards, too, after a while, maybe they keep ageing back and forth for centuries. Who knows. So, if this interests you too, go for it.
- Casefic is of course one of the most treasured and wonderful things in this fandom - because who doesn't want to see Peter and Nightingale doing what they do best and solving magical crime? So, if you have the patience and desire to write a wonderful mystery about queer goings on in Londontown (or anywhere else for that matter), go right ahead.
Some other things/tropes that I really love in this fandom are:
- Unsurprisingly, based on the above: London things! Though if you don't know much about London, don't feel you have to do a load of research just for this.
- Like just about everyone in this fandom, I am totally behind hurt/comfort for this ship, whether it's Nightingale's recovery from the end of book 1 or Peter being sad or wounded, it's all good.
Philadelphia Flyers RPF
Danny Briere, Claude Giroux
Don't shoot me, but I'm a Penguins fan. I don't know how I ended up liking players from the Flyers but, whatever, it happened. It's probably because of my not-so secret love of French-speakers and because Danny Briere is just such a prince and all-round classy guy while Claude just seems like a decent regular goofball. Also, I mean, c'mon, they lived together and sent couples Christmas cards. They are just too likable (and shippable) to resist.
I should also probably mention that I love ice hockey an absurd amount and it is a major part of my life. As in, I took up playing a couple of years ago after I got into the NHL and now it eats up most of my spare time. So feel free to throw in as much in-depth hockey stuff as you see fit - because I will get it and love it. But I am equally cool with fic that is about the characters and carefully sidesteps too much hockey talk - so don't worry if you get confused about what the difference between forechecking and backchecking is or whatever. It's all good.
Things I love about these two are the age difference, the kind of found-family thing they have going on, the long and gloriously long timescale of their relationship at this point. With that in mind, some ideas/prompts/thoughts you are free to ignore:
I like the idea of fic which explores their relationship after Danny has retired. Is Claude a factor in his decision to come back to Philly? Are they together already/do they get together afterwards? How does that dynamic work and how does Danny deal with being done with his playing career? And, looking to the future: will Claude ever win a Cup and how will Danny be involved in that?
As I alluded to above, I am all for them getting together at any point in the history of their acquaintance. Does it happen when Claude is living with Danny or before or after? Do they break it off for a while before or after Danny gets traded? I'd also be happy with some alternate reality divergence where some of those events go differently - Claude never moves out or Danny never gets traded or Claude is the one who ends up somewhere else. I am all for some degree of angst and uncertainty with these two - though I'd prefer they make it up in the end.
One thing I think would be a lot of fun with these two would also be some kind of time travel fic. Maybe Claude goes to a hockey summer camp when he's 17 only somehow he ends up 10 years in the past and he's the same age as Danny and something happens between them but then, afterwards, Claude is back in his proper time and Danny is grown up and married and how terrifying is it for both of them when they end up back on the same team... Or maybe Danny just finds himself falling out of time sometimes and is incredibly surprised to find out that Claude ends up their captain and they end up together - and maybe that's really the only reason why he actually lets himself start looking at Claude that way in the first place.
Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy
Bill Haydon, Jim Prideaux
Oh god, do I have to tell you how these to left me bruised and ruined and so, so empty and sad? Do I have to tell you how best friends who betray each other is my personal favourite dynamic and the Achilles' heel of my emotional stability? Because I think you can probably infer that just from the fact that I ship this.
This is a fandom that I never properly let myself get into because I have such intense feelings about their relationship in the source material (both the novel and the film adaptation - I'm afraid I've not seen the TV series). For the most part, I've just let the big hole they tore in my heart stay there and I pick at it sometimes, on my own. The few fics I've read have been beautiful though, so I thought I'd request that you rip another little hole in my heart. Here are some thoughts about how you might do it:
- I once half-wrote a story (a draft I'll probably never post or finish) about Jim saving Bill instead of killing him and their having to live with the fall-out of it all, their own not-quite happily ever after - because it's not as though they could ever truly break away. If you wanted to make that a thing, too, man, it would hurt me but it would be wonderful to see.
- I'd love to see the happier days, too. The Cambridge days or the first days at the Circus, when they were the inseparables for all that Bill was certainly still Bill then and far from the perfect person to tie oneself to (but you don't have to mention that if you'd prefer to pretend, or if you think Jim would).
- Or write me some kind of canon divergent AU, a what-if, a what-if-Jim-always-knew, a what-if-he-never-knew, something like that. A what-if Jim stayed pretending to be dead and Bill got away and found him and, somehow, Jim never knew they were living a lie. Or, hell, what if Bill was still Bill but wasn't the mole or might've been but someone else got caught and, really, what's the difference?
The Accountant
Christian Wolff, Braxton
When I watched this movie, I fully expected it to just be another dumb action movie. Though, as linndechir pointed out to me, at least one in which Ben Affleck murders a guy using a belt. Yeah, that was hot. I also expected the accountancy element to be badly done in a Hollywood way.(It kind of was - that whole big whiteboard thing that Christian does to detect fraud at the client: any ordinary computer with some marginally specialist software or a nicely rigged spreadsheet can do it in minutes. Trust me, I have done it.) What I didn't expect was how great the characters were, how engrossing the backstory was, and how it would give me a whole new fraternal incest ship. Yes please!
Did I say already how great these characters are? You have Braxton who is broken and sassy and can't shut up, who hurts people for a living but still bizarrely has principles about it. And Christian, whose principles seem to make a lot more sense because they're more obviously a big part of who is he, but who somehow still ended up on the wrong side of the law anyway, at least on the face of things. And they're the product of this weird, twisted upbringing but, from the one scene they have together, they seem to normalise each other more than anything. There is still this incredible degree of intimacy there which you don't see in any of their other interactions in the movie.
I would love to see fic which explores:
How their childhood made them the way they are - did they each struggle with different parts of it?
How did they cope in the army? Were they together?
If you are on board with making it shippy, how and when did they realise they wanted each other? When did they act on it? Did they ever act on it? Or is the 10 year separation the thing which makes them confront it?
Do they have the post-canon reunion? How does that work? Do they stay in touch? I am all for a cute happy ending for the pair of them but equally could see Christian keeping his distance to keep Brax safe and Braxton rebelling and calling bullshit on that.
I'm all in for fic which explores how Christian's issues with sensory overload, etc, might complicate their relationship - or how, maybe, it doesn't for them like it would for Chris with other people, since he trusts his brother and they know each other's limits.
Have a lovely festive season!