YULETIDE 2018

[revolver]

It's that time of year again!

First of all, I want to thank you for writing for me. I am so excited to see what you come up with for any of the fandoms and characters I requested. As a blanket FYI, for each fandom listed I'm open to fic rated G to E, and for each fandom I do ship the requested characters in some capacity or another. That said, if you would prefer to write gen fic, that works for me too, so no pressure!

General likes: unreliable narrators; nonlinear storytelling; moral complexity and/or ambiguity; backstory; missing scenes; outsider POV; blurring the lines between professional and personal relationships; mentor/protege relationships; epistolary fic; power play; codependency (both healthy and unhealthy); loyalty; unexpected intimacy and physical intimacy; case fic; dark fic; super messy, complicated, and difficult to categorize relationships between characters (made all the better if/when they share a history and maybe probably repressed feelings); repression, generally; sexual tension; slow burn; infidelity; hurt/comfort; fake dating; AUs, both of the canon divergence variety and the whole new setting variety (though, that said, I am not a huge fan of mundane AUs, i.e., coffeehouse AUs, high school/university AUs, etc.).

As I already mentioned, I totally invite ship fic or porn if you wish to write it. If you’re interested in writing smut, likes include: friends to lovers; enemies to lovers; first time; workplace sex; rough sex; hate sex; drunk sex; dub-con of the sex pollen/fuck or die/villains made us do it variety; biting; breathplay; choking; orgasm delay/denial; frottage; dirty talk; voyeurism/exhibitionism; under-negotiated kink; wet and messy; sex as ill-advised coping mechanism; sex as ill-advised attempt at communication between characters. [Link to Yuleporn comment TBA].

DNWs: rape or non-con; A/B/O or omegaverse; scat or watersports; formal BDSM; issue fic; kid!fic (unless the characters canonically have children); soulmates or soul marks or soul bonds; and character bashing.

Spoilers apply for all the fandoms below, but in particular the second season of Ozark.



1. SUCCESSION (TV 2018)
Kendall Roy; Roman Roy

KENDALL: Dad’s got him holding the plastic steering wheel in the back and telling him he’s driving.
ROMAN: You have to excuse my brother. He’s adjusting his medication right now.
KENDALL: How about you fuck off back to your little gang-bang?
ROMAN: See how he talks to me?
KENDALL: You’re embarrassing yourself.
ROMAN: He used to lock me in a cage.


Request: Fic that digs further into Kendall's and Roman's complicated, ugly, competitive but caring relationship. Details and prompts in letter.

All episodes available for streaming on HBO.

As a general disclaimer, I am very open to receiving incest fic for these two if you wish to write it. If you’d rather explore them as they appear canonically in the show, I am all for that, too. I really just want more of these two and their contentious, yet weirdly loving, fucked-up relationship rife with everything from sibling rivalry to business competition to a whole lot of repressed emotional shit from their youth. Their father clearly did a number on them where love and pride are concerned, to say the least. Despite that, there’s a lot of easy emotional intimacy between the two of them — in particular when they’re getting along when their father is incapacitated and the two of them are trying to run the family business or when Roman rushes off to pick up Kendall as Kendall began his hard-drop descent off the wagon — but there’s also so much ugly resentment and contempt and both of them underestimating and trying to use each other to their own benefit. I love how quickly Kendall and Roman switch between the two or even occupy the two at the same time with each other.

One of my favorite random scenes between the two of them is during Tom’s bachelor party. They spend the entire episode squabbling, bickering about the past, trying to one-up and sabotage each other with their father’s nemesis all while the specter of Roman’s betrayal during the no-confidence vote hangs over them, and coked out Kendall decides to take the ultimate stand against their father, and by extension family, via a hostile takeover with his dad’s enemy. All of this leads up to the end of the episode with Kendall and Roman in an elevator together. Kendall stares at Roman, Roman asks him if he’s trying to scare him, Kendall remains silent only to ram into Roman as he pushes his way out of the elevator. It’s a brief scene, but the tension and the energy in that scene is bonkers. If there is a way to bottle up that weird, dark energy into fic form, by all means, PLEASE.

Or, if you want to go the more fun route, I mean: Enough said.

But there is some more to be said!:

• If you want to go the post-finale fic route: what happens to Kendall now? How does Kendall return to the family after they all know he was willing to take the company out of family ownership, essentially screwing them out of their predetermined financial futures? How does he earn their trust back? Does he? Can he? And what happens to Roman? Roman had that whole subplot about the failed rocket launch; does their father demote him because of this? Feel free to write just the two of them wallowing privately in their own misery while poking each other, wanting to see the other more miserable than them as a way of coping.
• Another post-finale fic idea: for whatever reason you decide, Kendall has to live with Roman. The two of them as disastrous, easily aggravated roommates? I am here for it.
• Go into their past if you want to! From what we have been canonically given, there’s clearly a rich amount of fucked-up history to be mined (the dog cage?!?!). Tell me about their youth! The trips out to England to stay with their mother! Growing up in the shadow of their father! And if you want, how does Shiv fit into all of this? I love Shiv so much, and I especially love how she related so differently to both Kendall and Roman. She has that over-invested competitive spirit they all have, but there’s something steelier and cannier about her than Kendall or Roman could hope to possess. If you want to include her in any fic you write – canonically platonically or incestuously shippily or OT3-y – I absolutely invite it.
• I love missing scenes fic that fills in the gaps of canon. The first season covered what seemed like a fairly large amount of time, so if you wanted to fill anything in to offer more insight into Kendall and Roman, go for it! More of Roman working as COO to Kendall's interim CEO (hell, more weird shit in the vein of "shirts-off brainstorming" lol). More of the both of them after Logan came back to work. Or more of the both of them after that disastrous Thanksgiving. Fill in the gaps and write about an equally dysfunctional Roy family Christmas. Or, Kendall and Roman in the immediate aftermath of the failed vote of no-confidence: maybe Roman tries to reach out to Kendall and Kendall, (righteously) furiously, refuses to talk to him. Maybe Roman forces him to listen to him.
• Similarly, I’m a big fan of canon divergence AUs when it comes to fic. What if the vote of no-confidence had worked and now Kendall and Roman have to run Waystar Royco? How disastrous is that? How do these two work in a high pressure situation like that, knowing their father is waiting in the wings to destroy them? Or what if their father did die? Or what if Kendall’s hostile takeover actually worked?
• Or, run wilder with the AU premise! Go full-Shakespearean with the backstabbing and the betrayal and sibling rivalry and the jockeying for what little power they are able to marshal away from their father and make it a legit 17th-century AU full of court intrigue or what-have-you. Remove the media angle and plop the Roy family down in politics and make it a faux-Kennedy story of American political royalty trying to grasp onto what power and legacy they have left as scandal closes in.

2. OZARK (TV)
Martin “Marty” Byrde; Ruth Langmore

MARTY: What am I supposed to do?
RUTH: I don’t know, Marty. I guess there’s nothing you ever can do, is there.

Request: Fic that deeper explores the complex loyalty shared between Ruth and Marty as they work together and all the potential for betrayal they face. Details and prompts in letter.

All episodes available for streaming on Netflix.

Well, if that second season didn’t leave us with more than enough to work with where these two are concerned!

Generally, I am more interested in Ruth than I am in Marty, but that’s not to say I’m not interested in Marty. I find him especially interesting when he’s out of his element and scrambling to react and/or save himself and the lengths he goes to justify his largely morally bankrupt decisions. I'm especially fascinated by where the end of Season 2 left us and his mounting realization and horror at all that his wife is capable of and how his own moral ambiguity pales in comparison to hers. I also find him even more interesting in how he relates to (and how he uses) Ruth. I am deeply curious as to what he feels for her. There’s certainly an impulse to protect her buried somewhere in there, but he fails even at that. What does he actually feel for Ruth? Does he care? Because Ruth cares. Ruth is such a complicated knot of brutal survival instinct but also aching vulnerability.

And speaking of, the second season was a heck of a wallop for Ruth. Between her father and the FBI and the cartel and Wyatt and Marty, she was going through it. It’s more than clear now that Marty takes for granted the relationship he has with Ruth. He only seems to consider her either when he needs her to do something or when she poses a threat to what he wants to do. And Ruth sees this! Yet, despite all of that, she still wants his approval, desperately, and she wants him to see her as an equal. Which brings us to:

• I am all in for fic that digs deeper into that relationship or extrapolates it further out. Does Ruth eventually get fed-up with Marty? Does she demand more? How does she make her demands known? Does she turn against him and decide to strike out on her own? Like I said at the top of this (admittedly long) letter, feel free to explore this in a shippy or in a platonic regard.
• Another big question to explore post-season two: Wendy arranged for Ruth’s father to be killed. Marty knows this. Does Ruth? How does she find out? How does she react? Does she want revenge? If so, how does she plan to get it? And whose side is Marty going to be on? Does he become closer to Ruth or does he stand against her?
• Tied-in to Ruth’s father, another character point to play with could be how abandoned and discarded Marty made Ruth feel, which led her straight back to her father throughout the season. Ruth is so complicated where it comes to family and the competing desires to stand by her family but also stand with Marty! If you wanted to return to the complicated loyalty she has for Marty that resulted in her killing her uncles to defend him and work that into whatever you write, I am in. If you want to explore anything related to what Julia Garner, the actress who plays Ruth, had to say about Ruth and Marty — “She definitely has daddy issues. I think that’s why she is drawn towards Marty.” — platonically or daddy kinkily, by all means.
• In the recent season, Ruth was waterboarded and Marty was made to listen, and all of this happened because he hesitated when he was asked if he trusted her. Oh, boy, if that isn’t but one of my favorite tropes. She withstood the torture and she didn’t rat him out and he had to hear the whole thing. I am more than game for more of that hideousness (They work for the cartel! If I’ve learned anything from TV, violent torture goes with the territory probably!). Hurt/comfort fic, either for that scenario or a different one you invent, would be perfect. I did like how canonically Ruth shut down when it came to talking to Marty about what happened to her and, like everything else this season, Marty didn’t pursue it and let it drop. I’d like to see the both of them actually confront what happened. An actual full-on confrontation, rather than the slanted way they almost talked about it (how instead Marty helped Ruth’s cousin get back in school as a form of non-apology). Marty can fully confront Ruth about her past attempt to kill him and Ruth can confront him about everything he has, intentionally or collaterally, done to her.
• As for a more fucked-up prompts: The good old classic Bad Guys Made Them Do It. One of my favorite tropes! (And the exception to the "no non-con" DNW). Helen seems sadistic enough to pull something like that — for purposes of proving loyalty or how to follow authority or in an attempt to ruin the relationship between Ruth and Marty — and I am interested in both the dirtybadwrong porn of it all as well as the fallout from such a situation and how they would both navigate what happened and what they did to each other.
• I’m always in for more heists! The strip club heist in the first season was one of my favorite things this show has done, and I am all for another heist pulled off by the two of them. If you wanted to go casefic-style and create a whole heist plot for them to pull-off, I would love that. Similarly, if you want to complicate the whole endeavor with fake dating or potential double-crosses and betrayal between them, even better.
• AU-wise, what if Marty realizes both he and Ruth are in the crosshairs — of the FBI or the cartel or both — and decides their best bet to save their respective families is to flee. On the run fic, traipsing through the Midwest or the rest of the country, bad motels and bad radio and the two of them and all their shared baggage cooped up together trying to outrun the law and something worse? Absolutely.

3. THE MADWOMAN UPSTAIRS – CATHERINE LOWELL
James Timothy Orville III; Samantha Whipple

“And for that matter,” I continued, “if you believe what you say, then you shouldn’t find fault with this stunning piece of poetry I provided for you.” I tossed my essay back at him. “You are simply unable to see the inner beauty in my deplorable lack of passion.”

There was a small pause. Orville almost smiled. “Do you take me for a fool, Samantha?”

“Do you really want me to answer that question?” I blurted.

He stopped. My cheeks flamed. “Well,” he said, “now we’re getting somewhere.”

Request: Fic that plays with the slow burn between Orville and Samantha as their romance moves from repressed to realized. Details and prompts in letter.

Available wherever books are sold and/or most likely your local library. Amazon recently had this priced at $0.99, so fingers crossed they do that again!

Reader, I loved it.

From the narrative voice to the fresh oddness of Samantha as a protagonist to the very enjoyable sexual tension between her and Orville to all the literary references and allusions, this book was such a joy. Feel free to write this in the first-person POV if you want to replicate the book’s narration, but that is hardly an expected requirement. I really just want more of these two; I was so sad when the book was finally over. I would happily read one thousand words of these two sharing tea and arguing about whichever piece of acclaimed literature you wish.

• Legit, I would be happy reading one thousand words of these two sharing tea and arguing about whichever piece of acclaimed literature you wish.
• Seriously, more of those tutorials between them! There’s an entire academic year that can be filled in missing scene-wise! The novel did such a good job building the tension between the two of them and that slow burn that Samantha comes to realize is mutual. I would adore to read more of that. I found their literary arguments so fun to read and I loved how adamantly both stuck to their positions. I also loved Samantha coming into her own, her own voice and her own reading of things (not just books!) and how Orville is presented as such a disciplinarian, with Samantha always running afoul of him. So, more of that, please.
• And in terms of discipline and/or porn, if you should wish to write it, you have Orville canonically smacking a meter stick against the table each time Samantha gets an answer wrong during their tutorials. She calls him, “sir,” even though he never asked her to do that. The potential for any sort of under-negotiated D/s is right there on the table (so to speak). Feel free to run with it.
• Fake dating is another trope I can’t stop imagining when it comes to the two of them. Samantha’s awkwardness would be beautiful. I don’t know why and I don’t know who they are trying to fool and to what end (maybe it’s some arcane clause in the academic code I lack the cleverness to devise as I write this letter? maybe it’s an effort to somehow fool the press?), but that is a bulletproof favorite trope for me. And trying to imagine the two of them enacting it — Samantha awkwardly blundering her way through pretending to date Orville while trying to keep her own feelings at a low hum, Orville’s stoicism betrayed time and again by her — I am all about it.
• And speaking of the academic code: AU-it and instead of Samantha and Orville getting caught at the well, the two of them try to continue on as before, professor and student, despite everything that has transpired between them. The tension between them continues to boil and they find themselves trying to get around the school disciplinary code governing students and their educators in a variety of creative ways. Or find a different point of canon you wish to diverge from! I trust your judgment! I was so fascinated the entire novel by the repression between them, facilitated primarily by Orville (except for when he’s doing the exact opposite, i.e., the Jane Eyre movie night), and I would love to see that explored even more (including after they both admit their love at the end).
• I would also definitely be interested in reading post-novel fic. I am beyond curious about the intervening time before they are ultimately reunited. Did they ignore each other, thinking that would somehow be easier? Did they write to each other? I would totally gobble up epistolary fic that chronicles their time apart. Did Samantha have a moment of “fuck it” and decide to cart herself off to Ireland to see him?
• If you want to AU it and get super literal and go full Brontë, by all means. Go ahead and plop Samantha and Orville onto the moors of the 19th century. If you, dear writer, are super into the Bronté sisters and want to delve further into that aspect of the novel (and the treasure hunt) (or even just the parallels between Samantha and the sisters and their novels) — please, by all means. Go for it. I leave it to you.

I can be found elsewhere over on tumblr and AO3: widespindriftgaze & arbitrarily.

Again, thank you for writing for me! I hope you have fun, and I cannot wait to read what you come up with! Happy Holidays and Happy Yuletide!