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ID PRO QUO 2021
I can be found as arbitrarily on AO3 and widespindriftgaze on Tumblr. I am requesting fic only for the fandoms and pairings below, and I want to thank you in advance for writing for me!
This is my first time doing this exchange, and I am super excited. My id, laid bare! The cliff notes, amidst the sheer amount of freeforms requested here, is that I will never not go buck wild for any iteration of Something Made Them Do It or Patching Up Wounds As Tacit Expression of Care or Enemies of the Don’t Look At My Boner When We Fight variety and any and all relationships or sexual encounters where the participants are in strict denial about their feelings. THIS IS ME. I've included some prompts below to correspond with some of the requested freeform tags, but consider it all just suggestion. If you have a different idea for any of the tags requested, please, run with it!
(Also, for none of the below did I explicitly request "Gratuitous Descriptions of Winter," but this is me inviting you to go nuts in that regard if you should so wish.)
GENERAL LIKES
• unreliable narrators and/or characters who lie to themselves
• nonlinear storytelling, playing around with timelines, parallel storylines, anything wonky with structure
• character study
• morally gray characters and moral complexity and/or ambiguity
• backstory and pre-canon
• missing scenes
• outsider POV
• scene-setting and details from canon, especially if a historical or period piece, i.e., fashion, food, lush description
• epistolary fic, including emails, letters, fake articles, etc.
• 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
• friends or enemies or colleagues to lovers, or any other scrambled version of this, i.e., friends to enemies to lovers or enemies to lovers to friends
• intimacy in all forms, emotional and/or physical, from domestic and lived-in to unexpected, fraught, and inappropriate
• sexual tension, resolved or unresolved
• characters who have to reap what they sow and deal with the consequences of their actions, or alternatively, the desperate ends a character will go to in order to avoid said consequences
• aftermaths—guilt, PTSD, reactions to trauma, coping mechanisms both healthy and unhealthy
• secret relationships and secret affections (even better when that secret is kept even from themselves)
• dysfunctional families and dysfunctional relationships
• mentor/protege relationships
• blurring the line between professional and personal relationships
• codependency, both healthy and unhealthy
• loyalty and/or loyalty kink
• infidelity, as well as any guilt or shame associated with it
• power play and power struggles
• mind games, mindfuckery, manipulation
• betrayal or fear of betrayal
• identity porn, identity issues, undercover casefic
• on the road, travel, road trips, and the entire aesthetic/vibe that goes with it
• AUs*
*I am always all for canon-divergent AUs or AUs that turn on one detail in canon going differently and how the story could have unfolded as a result. I have also noted additional AU ideas I would be interested in receiving down below in the requests and prompts where they apply. For this exchange, however, I am not interested in receiving mundane AUs, i.e., coffeeshop AUs, high school/university AUs, or modern AUs for historical canons, unless otherwise specified.
SMUT LIKES
• casual sex, or sex before/as feelings develop
• first time
• overstimulation
• mutual masturbation
• choking and breathplay
• fingering, fingering after fucking
• oral sex, including rimming
• wet and messy, comeplay
• switching; I have no top or bottom preferences
• size kink
• size difference
• orgasm delay or denial
• dirty talk, both the good and the hilariously bad
• dub-con of the sex pollen/fuck or die/something or somebody made us do it variety
• dub-con due to power imbalance, mutual antagonism, or ulterior motive
• marking via bruising or biting
• sex as ill-advised attempt at communication between characters
• sex as unhealthy coping mechanism
• drunk sex
• hate sex and/or rough sex and/or manhandling and/or fighting/arguing leads to sex
• voyeurism
• friends or enemies or colleagues (or, somehow, all of the above!) with benefits
• character study via porn
• intimacy and/or trust demonstrated via sex acts
• under-negotiated kink or D/s
DNWs: rape/non-con (dub-con is fine; see likes above for details); A/B/O or omegaverse; scat or watersports; formal or lifestyle BDSM; asexual or trans headcanons (unless requested); kid fic, either via de-ageing requested characters or focus on parenthood/raising kids (mention of canon children is fine); pregnancy/mpreg; poly relationships (unless requested).
DUBLIN MURDER SQUAD SERIES - TANA FRENCH
Frank Mackey/Stephen Moran
A Is B's Handler - A Is Excruciatingly Aware That B's Life Is In Their Hands At All Times; A Is B's Handler - B Doesn't Fully Trust A But Needs To Rely On Them To Survive Anyway; Bad Guys Made Them Do It; Casefic - Characters In A Cat And Mouse Scenario; Characters Are Drift-Compatible Pacific Rim-Style Jaeger Pilots Who Fuck; Dublin Murder Squad - Stephen Moran Finds Out He Loves Subbing; Dublin Murder Squad - Frank Mackey Runs An Undercover Operation; Estranged Characters - Injured A Shows Up On B's Doorstep Saying, "I Didn't Know Where Else To Go"; Intense Fucking While Still Covered In Blood And Banged Up After Solving A Crime; Made-Them-Do-It Aftermath: Mutual Victims Each Sure The Other Must Hate Them Now (And Are Wrong); Praise Kink; Pressed Against Each Other While Hiding From Enemies; Physical Contact Feels Excruciatingly Intense; Rough Sex - Lots Of Scratching And Biting And Hair-Grabbing/Pulling And Holding Partner(s) Down; Telepathic Mentorship; Telepathic Sex; Undercover - Forced To Have Sex To Keep Cover; Undercover - Handler Listens In As Field Agent Has Sex To Maintain Cover; Undercover As A Couple; Undercover Work Used As Excuse To Have Sex They've Always Wanted
• Dublin Murder Squad - Stephen Moran Finds Out He Loves Subbing - I didn't nominate that tag, but bless you, whoever did, because going through the tags and stumbling across this one lit up my brain completely and made me immediately want any and as much fic as I can get my hands on about it. Throw in some Praise Kink, and we got a stew going.
• Dublin Murder Squad - Frank Mackey Runs An Undercover Operation; Undercover - Handler Listens In As Field Agent Has Sex To Maintain Cover; A Is B's Handler - A Is Excruciatingly Aware That B's Life Is In Their Hands At All Times; A Is B's Handler - B Doesn't Fully Trust A But Needs To Rely On Them To Survive Anyway - What it all says on the tin here! Frank looping Stephen in to an undercover op, for whatever reason, with Frank running the show, Stephen uncertain if he should trust him even as he agrees to do it and then being thrust out into the field with only Frank to rely on to keep him alive? Delicious. Even more delicious: if Frank's the voice in his ear constantly throughout the op, if Frank can hear everything Stephen says and does, and if in a desperate bid to keep his cover and stay alive Stephen resorts to seduction and sex, with Frank listening all the while. My kingdom for that tension-filled debrief after!
• Or, if you really want to go nuts, I’d gobble up a twisted retelling of The Likeness where Stephen is the undercover that Frank drops in. Frank and Stephen still have their history, but the dead body they find looks exactly like one Stephen Moran. Give me alllllll that push-and-pull of authority and obedience, Stephen both outside his element and falling under the thrall of pretending to be someone he isn't, all the phone check-ins with Frank, Frank both putting him out on a limb and trying to protect him—all of it!
• On the flip-side of Frank running an undercover, I am all for some classic Undercover As A Couple, with Frank and Stephen thrust out into the field together. As I prefaced this entire letter, I am always down for some Bad Guys Made Them Do It (and the aftermath of that) and the Undercover Work Used As Excuse To Have Sex They've Always Wanted just truly speaks to my soul. (As, for that matter, does this tag: Pressed Against Each Other While Hiding From Enemies; Physical Contact Feels Excruciatingly Intense. Forced intimacy? Writer, I live for it.)
• Characters Are Drift-Compatible Pacific Rim-Style Jaeger Pilots Who Fuck - This was another tag that, when it came to these two, I read and immediately my imagination fired up into the highest gear possible. I am just so fascinated by the idea of how the loyalty and trust issues between the both of them would play out between the two of them, especially when you add that layer of drift compatibility on top of it. I also just absolutely, 100% want fic where Stephen gets inside of Frank's head––literally, as the case would be here!––and Frank gets into Stephen's.
• Telepathic Mentorship; Telepathic Sex - Speaking of getting in each other's heads, Tana French always flirts with the supernatural and the strange in her books, so why not go all the way in and make telepathy a part of Frank's undercover ops. Maybe they're not even police anymore but a completely different outfit, but telepathy plays a role in the work they do and how they work with each other. And after Stephen is recruited, he now has Frank Mackey's voice rolling around in his head.
• Casefic - Characters In A Cat And Mouse Scenario - Whether you want to pit Frank and Stephen against each other or if you want to have them against the world, I love both. Maybe there's an Internal Affairs investigation, maybe one of Frank's undercovers winds up dead and Stephen is working the case and Frank is a person of interest, maybe they both stumble into a conspiracy, biting off way more than they can chew––I love any of it. I am all for mutual distrust between Frank and Stephen being worked out (maybe they only think they're working against each other when in reality both is working with the other in mind?) or even worsened as they each try to play off or simply play each other.
FARGO (TV)
Constant Calamita/Rabbi Milligan
Bad Guys Made Them Do It; Canon Divergence Due To Bad Guy Switching Loyalties; Character A Nurses Character B Back To Health After B Nearly Killed A; Characters With Benefits Who've Never Kissed; When They Do It's A Line Crossing Intimate Moment; Enemies - No Oe Else Is Allowed To Kill You But Me; Enemies To Lovers - Character A Tenderly Treats Character B's Injuries Character A Inflicted; Enemies To Lovers - Seeing Enemy/Antagonist Hurting Prompts Unexpected Feelings; Hate Sex - Characters Having Hate Sex Develop Feelings For Each Other; Hate Sex Turns Surprisingly Tender; Injured Bad Guy Showing Up On Good Guy's Doorstep Saying, "I Didn't Know Where Else To Go"; Possessiveness - No One Is Allowed To Hurt You Except Me; Rough Sex To Stave Off Other Violent Urges; Sex - Touch-Starved Character So Overwhelmed They Don't Know What To Do With Themselves; Sex While Covered In The Blood Of Their Enemies; Something Made Them Do It - Forced To Have Sex For Entertainment Of Third Party; Stranded Together With No Way Home; They Thought No One Was Coming; Got Rescued By Unexpected Person; Time Loop - Antagonist Is Also Looping
• Canon Divergence Due To Bad Guy Switching Loyalties - I am being as self-indulgent and id-y as I can be here, but I cannot stop thinking about the canon divergence possibilities if when Josto sent Calamita to hunt down Rabbi, Calamita was playing his own game, namely Gaetano and Josto off each other, and rather than kill Rabbi, they (begrudgingly) join forces. Or, Calamita realizes that Josto has sold him out and makes a lot of rash decisions, many of which involve Rabbi. Or maybe Calamita makes the switch earlier, after Gaetano kills those two random people in the bar or after he kills Doctor Senator and decides neither Gaetano and Josto are worth following.
• Bad Guys Made Them Do It; Something Made Them Do It - Forced To Have Sex For Entertainment Of Third Party - Gaetano questioned Rabbi's loyalty near immediately, so maybe after Rabbi sabotages the hit on Lemuel Cannon, Gaetano demands a gesture of loyalty to the family. And, maybe, said gesture turns out to be an equally reluctant Calamita fucking him while Gaetano watches.
• One of my all-time favorite tropes is amateur wound care. Roughly twenty years of the both of them with the Fadda family, and with Calamita as the enforcer and Milligan as another foot soldier for the family, you know they’ve had their rough scrapes before. Give me some of that weird antagonism and tension between them as one is forced to bandage up or care for the other, and I’ll love it all the more. Have them have to care for each other after inflicting those wounds? (See: Character A Nurses Character B Back To Health After B Nearly Killed A or Enemies to Lovers - Character A Tenderly Treats Character B's Injuries Character A Inflicted AND/OR Injured Bad Guy Showing Up On Good Guy's Doorstep Saying, "I Didn't Know Where Else To Go.") YES, PLEASE. And tangential to all that, scars! Scarification, scar worship, the both of them leaving scars on each other—I’d eat either up with a spoon. Add to that Calamita’s canonical branding, and you have my attention.
• Rough Sex To Stave Off Other Violent Urges; Sex - Touch-Starved Character So Overwhelmed They Don't Know What To Do With Themselves; Sex While Covered In The Blood Of Their Enemies - Speaking of sex, please, lend as much gnarliness and nastiness to them as you want. Fucking as yet another power play between them? Calamita trying to assert power over Rabbi or Rabbi seeing sex as just another card for him to play? Absolutely. Or, alternatively and much less calculated, touch-starved and desperate Rabbi, unloved and never belonging anywhere or to anyone in his life, plenty aware that whatever this is isn't love or affection as it should be or as he should want it, but he'll take it. Or, maybe with Calamita affection manifests only through violence? Or, sex as demonstration of perverse loyalty? Why not! Hate sex? Obviously; I am all in for that. And I am ESPECIALLY all for any variety of Hate Sex - Characters Having Hate Sex Develop Feelings For Each Other or Hate Sex Turns Surprisingly Tender (or, you know, as tender as someone like Calamita is capable of lol) or absolute holy grail for me: Characters With Benefits Who've Never Kissed; When They Do It's A Line Crossing Intimate Moment.
• Time Loop - Antagonist Is Also Looping - You just know I have to request that tornado in Kansas serve as a device for some fun time looping. Rabbi is stuck repeating the same miserable mistakes of his life, “The Future is Now!” INDEED, as his future is now caught, like a tornado, running in circles with him trying to find some peace at the eye of a storm. Maybe each iteration involves Rabbi and Calamita killing each other or maybe they have to work together and maybe sometimes the only person on your side is your enemy.
• Last, feel free to work those canonical bitter Midwest winters in, particularly via the Stranded Together With No Way Home tag. Give me a blizzard and strand them somewhere cold and miserable, stuck relying on each other if they want to survive! Or strand them among mutual enemies, making a detente between them necessary if, again, they want to survive. Or, maybe it's a rescue op gone bad (They Thought No One Was Coming; Got Rescued By Unexpected Person) and now they're both stuck and stranded together.
Lemuel Cannon/Omie Sparkman
A Admires B's Fighting Skills; A Hopes Not To Reveal Affection For B But Oops Their Protective Side Just Came Out Now It's Obvious; Alternate Universe - Canonically Dead Character Lives; Badass In Distress; Bed Sharing Justified As It Just Being Practical; Character A Does Morally Questionable Things To Save B; Doesn't Think B Will Forgive Them; Character A Tries To Physically Fight Character B But B Refuses To Hurt Them; Character Is Tortured As Revenge For Something That Wasn't Their Fault; Characters Pretend That It's Not Actually Sex If It Doesn't Involve Penetration; Dangerous Morally Grey Person Utterly Loyal To Person They See As Good And Kind; Fighting - One Character Gets Off On Watching The Other One Fight; Fighting/Sparring As Foreplay; First-Time - A Patient With B's Clumsy But Enthusiastic Blow Job/Cunnilingus; Loyalty; My Moral Compass Is "What Do I Need To Do To Protect You?"; Reluctant Attraction - Develops While Forced To Work Together; Socially Expected Loyalty Arrangement Is Removed; A & B Remain Loyal Despite No Obligations; Teaching A Beginner How To Fight Unexpectedly Effective As Foreplay
• Alternate Universe - Canonically Dead Character Lives - Well, of course, first item on the menu here: fix-it fic! Maybe Omie makes it back from Kansas, in one piece or injured, but empty-handed and without Satchel. Does that leave him on the outs with the Cannon Limited? Is Lemuel maybe the only one willing to stand in his corner? And speaking of the back half of canon here: what happens after Loy's death? We know the Kansas City Mafia rises out of the ashes of this conflict and we know Satchel becomes Mike Milligan, but what becomes of Lemuel? And if Omie lives, where does he go? I'd pretty much love anything that plays around with the Socially Expected Loyalty Arrangement Is Removed; A & B Remain Loyal Despite No Obligations tag. Omie is no longer required to protect what remains of the Cannon family, but that doesn't stop him sticking close to Lemuel.
• Speaking of protecting the Cannon family, I love canon-divergent AUs, and I feel like there are a great many you could play around with here. Maybe after the drive-by shooting attempt Loy, in his anger and his fear, pulls Leon off as Lemuel's muscle and installs Omie instead. I would love fic that depicted that push-and-pull between them, "the reluctant prince of a king too kind for his own good and the king's blood knight." Omie definitely strikes me as being much more resigned and practical as to the violent ways of both the world and their racket as opposed to Lemuel's idealism, and that contrast, as well as their contrast in their roles in the Cannon Limited, is just delicious to me. (And if you want to play around with moral disagreements between Omie and Lemuel, the My Moral Compass Is "What Do I Need To Do To Protect You?" looks pretty inviting indeed.)
• Character Is Tortured As Revenge For Something That Wasn't Their Fault - Oh boy, this is me and my id shouting from the rooftops how bonkers into a fic where as a result of the shit going down between the Faddas and the Cannons, as retribution (for the shoot-out carried out by the Fargo syndicate on the Fadda house? For something else?) Lemuel is picked up and held same as the Cannon Limited held Gaetano––and more or less receives the same treatment. Enter Omie's eventual rescue, which still is unfortunately not soon enough.
• Fighting/Sparring As Foreplay; Teaching A Beginner How To Fight Unexpectedly Effective As Foreplay - Anything, anything at all!, where Omie teaches Lemuel how to box! The Intricate Rituals of teaching your boss's son how to defend himself! Or, maybe Lemuel starts spending his time watching Omie fight (and cue Fighting - One Character Gets Off On Watching The Other One Fight). Late-night underground boxing matches, Omie before canon when he was a star boxer, however you want to frame it, I am sure I will love it.
STAR WARS SEQUEL TRILOGY
Poe Dameron/Armitage Hux
Bad Guys Made Them Do It; Both Captured - Forced To Work Together To Escape; Breathplay; Captivity - Hurt/Comfort Between Fellow Captives Leads To Sex; Character A Nurses Character B Back To Health After B Nearly Killed A; Characters Exiled Together; Characters Have Sex As Part Of Diplomatic Negotiations And/Or Relations; Enemies To Allies Of Convenience To Lovers; Enemies To Lovers - Developing Inconvenient Feelings After A Sex Pollen Incident; Enemies To Lovers - Rough Sex With Good Guy As The Aggressor; Hate Sex - Characters Having Hate Sex Develop Feelings For Each Other; Hurt/Comfort - Circumstances Force Enemies To Patch Each Other Up; Resurrection - Came Back Wrong In A Dangerous Way; Seemingly Prudish And Prissy Character Is Unexpectedly Good At Dirty Talk; Sex Pollen - Only One Person Affected; Stranded On A Hostile Planet Together; Touch-Starved - Stoic Character Falls Apart When Someone Touches Them; Truth Serum Serves As Accidental Sex Pollen
• I will be honest, a single one of these tags and the enemy dynamic played up between them to the hilt, and I will be beyond delighted. I am always, always, always a sucker for enemies forced to work together, whether it's the Enemies to Allies of Convenience to Lovers or the catnip to my id Circumstances Force Enemies To Patch Each Other Up or Stranded On A Hostile Planet Together or any and all of the above. Maybe Poe did know Hux was the spy all along and Poe served as his point of contact with the Resistance. Or maybe the two of them shared in a plot to assassinate Kylo Ren or whoever else you want. Any sort of scenario that forces them to begrudgingly work together to achieve a greater goal and somewhere in there realize, uh oh, they've kind of developed feelings (or at least the desire to fuck each other)? I am all the way in.
• Both Captured - Forced To Work Together To Escape; Captivity - Hurt/Comfort Between Fellow Captives Leads To Sex - Consider this the absolute unchecked id portion of this request, lol. But, captivity galore! The both of them forced to work together and put their differences aside! Maybe one of them steps in unexpectedly to defend the other! Maybe they reluctantly begin to feel more than a "hey we're captured together here" kinship. Embrace any and all tropes associated the captivity theme; I'm all in.
• Forced intimacy and situations that force characters to have sex? A perennial favorite for me. Whether it's Bad Guys Made Them Do It or it's any variety of the Sex Pollen tags, or it's toying around with Truth Serum Serves as Accidental Sex Pollen, or if the sex they have to have has zero biological or chemical component and is instead a part of peace talks and diplomacy after the war, I love it all. (If you want to hit one out of the park and go the extra mile and combine all these tags and ideas in one fic? Color me impressed and eternally grateful.)
• Resurrection - Came Back Wrong In A Dangerous Way - “Somehow…Palpatine General Hux came back." Feel free to get creative about the how of Hux's resurrection––or feel free to completely hand-wave it––but I am more than a little obsessed with the idea of Hux returning to raise hell just as Poe begins peacetime efforts.
• Uh, and last: Breathplay. You know Hux would be into it.
SUCCESSION (TV 2018)
Kendall Roy/Siobhan "Shiv" Roy
A Gets Off On B Relaying Their Sexual Exploits; Characters With Benefits Who've Never Kissed; When They Do It's A Line Crossing Intimate Moment; Codependency - Actively Encouraging Each Other's Self-Destructive Tendencies; Cunnilingus So Good That Partner Has To Hold Them When Their Knees Buckle; Guilty Sex; Het Anal Sex; Incest - Discovered By Others; Incest - Having Threesomes With Non-Relatives While Wanting Only Each Other; Incest - Shame After Incestuous Relationship Becomes Public; Lovers To Enemies To Lovers; Outsider POV Finds Canon Protagonists' Typical Behavior To Be Terrifying; Ridiculously Gothic Atmosphere; Rough Sex As Unhealthy Coping Mechanism; Secret Relationship; Soulmates - Incestuous Soulmates Have To Keep It A Secret; Time Loop; We Both Know You Betrayed Me But Let's Sleep Together One Last Time Before The Consequences Hit; You Know The Vibes Of The Cordelia (2020) Movie Poster? THAT.
• Guilty Sex; Incest - Discovered By Others; Incest - Shame After Incestuous Relationship Becomes Public; Outsider POV Finds Canon Protagonists' Typical Behavior To Be Terrifying - The thing I always, always, ALWAYS love about fic that explores incest is the shame and the guilt of it all. I'm lumping all these tags together here, but by all means, only write one or pair them with different tags; they all just deal with the themes of regret and shame I am all about for these two. I think the both of them operate very differently when it comes to being called out or made to feel shame, and I would love to see that dichotomy play out, especially when the source of the shame is the fact they are fucking each other. Give me that nightmare as maybe another family member (Roman? Greg?) catches them or some gossip column makes public the fact the two of them have a longstanding incestuous relationship. I'd also love if you wanted to tackle outsider POV here, someone on the outside of their relationship looking in on them and horrified by what they see.
• Season 2 fallout!!! Does Shiv side against him, or do they manage to work through their mutual shit (including betrayal on her end) and team up? If they do team up, how much doubt is there on either side? I'd be all about the two of them embarking on a completely ill-advised sexual relationship as both an exercise of mutual distrust but also in a bizarre bid to even the score between them. Maybe Kendall wants something rough from Shiv, his own form of penance (hello, Rough Sex As Unhealthy Coping Mechanism). Or maybe it's Shiv for once, forcing herself to submit because that's the only way she can imagine herself asking forgiveness (without, of course, ever having to say the words out loud.)
• Lovers To Enemies To Lovers; We Both Know You Betrayed Me But Let's Sleep Together One Last Time Before The Consequences Hit - I would love to read would be an alternate Season 2 where Kendall and Shiv were fucking the entire time. My kingdom for it! Did it start after when Shiv comforted him? Tern Haven? All the way back at the Hamptons and Shiv's anger at Kendall took on a distinctly inappropriate and sexual bent? How does that play out with Shiv's betrayal, turning him over to their father as the blood sacrifice? (Obviously, the way my id demands that play out is emotionally freighted porn, lol.)
• I am also totally down for any scenario that brings a third party into play, whether it's going the threesome route (Incest - Having Threesomes With Non-Relatives While Wanting Only Each Other) (and for that, feel free to draw a canon character into the arrangement––Naomi? Rava? Stewy, maybe when they both were younger? I am struggling to imagine Tom, but I am not opposed lol)––or if it's one or the other trying to goad the other by talking about their encounters (A Gets Off On B Relaying Their Sexual Exploits).
• Soulmates - Incestuous Soulmates Have To Keep It A Secret - Normally this isn't a trope I'm super into, but oh boy, the idea of Shiv and Kendall as the most reluctant and disgusted soulmates in the world, who have to keep it a secret because, y'know, the incest of it all while at the same time being the one person the other could come closest to understanding best? That right there is delicious.
• Time Loop - Maybe Kendall keeps repeating the events of Shiv's wedding over and over again, trying in vain to stop himself from killing that cater waiter, only to invite worse events onto both himself and the family with each successive loop. Maybe it's Shiv, and she's stuck at Tern Haven, finding new and inventive ways to fuck up that dinner with each loop, but waking up every morning to have to do it again. Or maybe it's in the hospital, after Logan's stroke, and Shiv and Kendall are looping together, duking it out over who deserves to run the company in their father's incapacitation. However you want to play it, I am sure I will love it!
• If you are in need of a final dose of inspiration, let this photo be your guide; I think about it far, far too often.
TENET (2020)
Neil/The Protagonist
As a general note: I am totally fine if you want to refer to The Protagonist as The Protagonist or if you want to give him a name of your own invention, but I would prefer no first or second-person POV.
Bad Guys Made Them Do It; Captivity - Captured Together; Characters Are In Love But Duty Will Keep Them Apart Forever Until Something Makes Them Do It; Hurt/Comfort - Field Dressing Combat Injuries While Being Hunted By Adversaries; If I Must Solve A Dozen Geopolitical Problems Just To Have Sex With You Then I Will; Pining Characters Not Ready To Be In A Relationship Navigating Messy Feelings Post-Fuck Or Die; Proximity - Characters Must Be Touching Or Feel Pain; A Rescues B From Trouble B Knowingly Walked Into (B Thought They Could Handle It On Their Own); Sex Pollen - One Person Affected; Tending To Wounds; Time Loop; Time Travel Doesn't Work How Characters Think It Does; This Becomes A Problem; Trapped Together; Truth Serum Forces Character To Admit What They're Sexually Into; Undercover - Forced To Have Sex To Keep Cover; Whump - Character Hiding Injury/Illness Collapses; Whump - A Sacrifices Themself To Protect B; B Is Forced To Watch A Being Tortured
• I finally watched this movie a couple weeks ago, and I have not known peace ever since. I'M IN DEEP. And let me tell you, this tag? If I Must Solve A Dozen Geopolitical Problems Just To Have Sex With You Then I Will? It speaks to me on a deep soul level, lol. Have these two constantly thrust into danger and world-ending trouble and have the timing never be exactly right! I am so interested in everything about the shared time together, especially the future that is waiting for The Protagonist and the past for Neil.
• Bad Guys Made Them Do It, Characters Are In Love But Duty Will Keep Them Apart Forever Until Something Makes Them Do It - Maybe Andrei picked up on something between Neil and The Protagonist and for fun villain reasons decides to take some time out of plotted global annihilation and poke and play with that (and them) on his yacht or in Oslo.
• Hurt/Comfort - Field Dressing Combat Injuries While Being Hunted By Adversaries; Tending To Wounds - Get as disgustingly imaginative as you want with inverted injuries—I am always, always, ALWAYS a fan of body horror, and as this letter has made abundantly clear, always a fan of one person tenderly caring for another’s wounds (while developing feelings), so go wild, dear writer!
• Time Loop; Time Travel Doesn't Work How Characters Think It Does; This Becomes A Problem - Honestly, I don’t think I could explain the mechanics of the plot of this movie with any sort of finesse, empty head, thoughts only of these two in it. But! If you wanted to have an accidental side effect of all this inversion business be that a time loop was created—a cul-de-sac of sorts they accidentally created—and now they can’t get out, I’d be super into it. Or, maybe, The Protagonist refuses to accept Neil’s death, starts messing around with time with the express purpose of keeping Neil alive. Does it work? Are the consequences that much greater than he ever could have imagined? In his pursuit to save Neil, and by playing around with inversion and time and temporality, does The Protagonist inadvertently make himself into The Antagonist, thereby putting himself on a collision course with Neil?
• Trapped Together - In time, in one of those turnstiles, underground in a former nuclear missile silo—whatever! Stick them together somewhere and make them have to figure their way out.
• Truth Serum Forces Character To Admit What They're Sexually Into - Wry, amused Neil listening to a rescued and rambling Protagonist? Please. The other way around with a dumbfounded Protagonist who really, really needs Neil to stop talking; he’d beg him, but he’s pretty sure based on what he just heard, Neil would be really into that.
• dub-con due to power imbalance, mutual antagonism, or ulterior motive
• marking via bruising or biting
• sex as ill-advised attempt at communication between characters
• sex as unhealthy coping mechanism
• drunk sex
• hate sex and/or rough sex and/or manhandling and/or fighting/arguing leads to sex
• voyeurism
• friends or enemies or colleagues (or, somehow, all of the above!) with benefits
• character study via porn
• intimacy and/or trust demonstrated via sex acts
• under-negotiated kink or D/s
DNWs: rape/non-con (dub-con is fine; see likes above for details); A/B/O or omegaverse; scat or watersports; formal or lifestyle BDSM; asexual or trans headcanons (unless requested); kid fic, either via de-ageing requested characters or focus on parenthood/raising kids (mention of canon children is fine); pregnancy/mpreg; poly relationships (unless requested).
DUBLIN MURDER SQUAD SERIES - TANA FRENCH
Frank Mackey/Stephen Moran
A Is B's Handler - A Is Excruciatingly Aware That B's Life Is In Their Hands At All Times; A Is B's Handler - B Doesn't Fully Trust A But Needs To Rely On Them To Survive Anyway; Bad Guys Made Them Do It; Casefic - Characters In A Cat And Mouse Scenario; Characters Are Drift-Compatible Pacific Rim-Style Jaeger Pilots Who Fuck; Dublin Murder Squad - Stephen Moran Finds Out He Loves Subbing; Dublin Murder Squad - Frank Mackey Runs An Undercover Operation; Estranged Characters - Injured A Shows Up On B's Doorstep Saying, "I Didn't Know Where Else To Go"; Intense Fucking While Still Covered In Blood And Banged Up After Solving A Crime; Made-Them-Do-It Aftermath: Mutual Victims Each Sure The Other Must Hate Them Now (And Are Wrong); Praise Kink; Pressed Against Each Other While Hiding From Enemies; Physical Contact Feels Excruciatingly Intense; Rough Sex - Lots Of Scratching And Biting And Hair-Grabbing/Pulling And Holding Partner(s) Down; Telepathic Mentorship; Telepathic Sex; Undercover - Forced To Have Sex To Keep Cover; Undercover - Handler Listens In As Field Agent Has Sex To Maintain Cover; Undercover As A Couple; Undercover Work Used As Excuse To Have Sex They've Always Wanted
• Dublin Murder Squad - Stephen Moran Finds Out He Loves Subbing - I didn't nominate that tag, but bless you, whoever did, because going through the tags and stumbling across this one lit up my brain completely and made me immediately want any and as much fic as I can get my hands on about it. Throw in some Praise Kink, and we got a stew going.
• Dublin Murder Squad - Frank Mackey Runs An Undercover Operation; Undercover - Handler Listens In As Field Agent Has Sex To Maintain Cover; A Is B's Handler - A Is Excruciatingly Aware That B's Life Is In Their Hands At All Times; A Is B's Handler - B Doesn't Fully Trust A But Needs To Rely On Them To Survive Anyway - What it all says on the tin here! Frank looping Stephen in to an undercover op, for whatever reason, with Frank running the show, Stephen uncertain if he should trust him even as he agrees to do it and then being thrust out into the field with only Frank to rely on to keep him alive? Delicious. Even more delicious: if Frank's the voice in his ear constantly throughout the op, if Frank can hear everything Stephen says and does, and if in a desperate bid to keep his cover and stay alive Stephen resorts to seduction and sex, with Frank listening all the while. My kingdom for that tension-filled debrief after!
• Or, if you really want to go nuts, I’d gobble up a twisted retelling of The Likeness where Stephen is the undercover that Frank drops in. Frank and Stephen still have their history, but the dead body they find looks exactly like one Stephen Moran. Give me alllllll that push-and-pull of authority and obedience, Stephen both outside his element and falling under the thrall of pretending to be someone he isn't, all the phone check-ins with Frank, Frank both putting him out on a limb and trying to protect him—all of it!
• On the flip-side of Frank running an undercover, I am all for some classic Undercover As A Couple, with Frank and Stephen thrust out into the field together. As I prefaced this entire letter, I am always down for some Bad Guys Made Them Do It (and the aftermath of that) and the Undercover Work Used As Excuse To Have Sex They've Always Wanted just truly speaks to my soul. (As, for that matter, does this tag: Pressed Against Each Other While Hiding From Enemies; Physical Contact Feels Excruciatingly Intense. Forced intimacy? Writer, I live for it.)
• Characters Are Drift-Compatible Pacific Rim-Style Jaeger Pilots Who Fuck - This was another tag that, when it came to these two, I read and immediately my imagination fired up into the highest gear possible. I am just so fascinated by the idea of how the loyalty and trust issues between the both of them would play out between the two of them, especially when you add that layer of drift compatibility on top of it. I also just absolutely, 100% want fic where Stephen gets inside of Frank's head––literally, as the case would be here!––and Frank gets into Stephen's.
• Telepathic Mentorship; Telepathic Sex - Speaking of getting in each other's heads, Tana French always flirts with the supernatural and the strange in her books, so why not go all the way in and make telepathy a part of Frank's undercover ops. Maybe they're not even police anymore but a completely different outfit, but telepathy plays a role in the work they do and how they work with each other. And after Stephen is recruited, he now has Frank Mackey's voice rolling around in his head.
• Casefic - Characters In A Cat And Mouse Scenario - Whether you want to pit Frank and Stephen against each other or if you want to have them against the world, I love both. Maybe there's an Internal Affairs investigation, maybe one of Frank's undercovers winds up dead and Stephen is working the case and Frank is a person of interest, maybe they both stumble into a conspiracy, biting off way more than they can chew––I love any of it. I am all for mutual distrust between Frank and Stephen being worked out (maybe they only think they're working against each other when in reality both is working with the other in mind?) or even worsened as they each try to play off or simply play each other.
FARGO (TV)
Constant Calamita/Rabbi Milligan
Bad Guys Made Them Do It; Canon Divergence Due To Bad Guy Switching Loyalties; Character A Nurses Character B Back To Health After B Nearly Killed A; Characters With Benefits Who've Never Kissed; When They Do It's A Line Crossing Intimate Moment; Enemies - No Oe Else Is Allowed To Kill You But Me; Enemies To Lovers - Character A Tenderly Treats Character B's Injuries Character A Inflicted; Enemies To Lovers - Seeing Enemy/Antagonist Hurting Prompts Unexpected Feelings; Hate Sex - Characters Having Hate Sex Develop Feelings For Each Other; Hate Sex Turns Surprisingly Tender; Injured Bad Guy Showing Up On Good Guy's Doorstep Saying, "I Didn't Know Where Else To Go"; Possessiveness - No One Is Allowed To Hurt You Except Me; Rough Sex To Stave Off Other Violent Urges; Sex - Touch-Starved Character So Overwhelmed They Don't Know What To Do With Themselves; Sex While Covered In The Blood Of Their Enemies; Something Made Them Do It - Forced To Have Sex For Entertainment Of Third Party; Stranded Together With No Way Home; They Thought No One Was Coming; Got Rescued By Unexpected Person; Time Loop - Antagonist Is Also Looping
• Canon Divergence Due To Bad Guy Switching Loyalties - I am being as self-indulgent and id-y as I can be here, but I cannot stop thinking about the canon divergence possibilities if when Josto sent Calamita to hunt down Rabbi, Calamita was playing his own game, namely Gaetano and Josto off each other, and rather than kill Rabbi, they (begrudgingly) join forces. Or, Calamita realizes that Josto has sold him out and makes a lot of rash decisions, many of which involve Rabbi. Or maybe Calamita makes the switch earlier, after Gaetano kills those two random people in the bar or after he kills Doctor Senator and decides neither Gaetano and Josto are worth following.
• Bad Guys Made Them Do It; Something Made Them Do It - Forced To Have Sex For Entertainment Of Third Party - Gaetano questioned Rabbi's loyalty near immediately, so maybe after Rabbi sabotages the hit on Lemuel Cannon, Gaetano demands a gesture of loyalty to the family. And, maybe, said gesture turns out to be an equally reluctant Calamita fucking him while Gaetano watches.
• One of my all-time favorite tropes is amateur wound care. Roughly twenty years of the both of them with the Fadda family, and with Calamita as the enforcer and Milligan as another foot soldier for the family, you know they’ve had their rough scrapes before. Give me some of that weird antagonism and tension between them as one is forced to bandage up or care for the other, and I’ll love it all the more. Have them have to care for each other after inflicting those wounds? (See: Character A Nurses Character B Back To Health After B Nearly Killed A or Enemies to Lovers - Character A Tenderly Treats Character B's Injuries Character A Inflicted AND/OR Injured Bad Guy Showing Up On Good Guy's Doorstep Saying, "I Didn't Know Where Else To Go.") YES, PLEASE. And tangential to all that, scars! Scarification, scar worship, the both of them leaving scars on each other—I’d eat either up with a spoon. Add to that Calamita’s canonical branding, and you have my attention.
• Rough Sex To Stave Off Other Violent Urges; Sex - Touch-Starved Character So Overwhelmed They Don't Know What To Do With Themselves; Sex While Covered In The Blood Of Their Enemies - Speaking of sex, please, lend as much gnarliness and nastiness to them as you want. Fucking as yet another power play between them? Calamita trying to assert power over Rabbi or Rabbi seeing sex as just another card for him to play? Absolutely. Or, alternatively and much less calculated, touch-starved and desperate Rabbi, unloved and never belonging anywhere or to anyone in his life, plenty aware that whatever this is isn't love or affection as it should be or as he should want it, but he'll take it. Or, maybe with Calamita affection manifests only through violence? Or, sex as demonstration of perverse loyalty? Why not! Hate sex? Obviously; I am all in for that. And I am ESPECIALLY all for any variety of Hate Sex - Characters Having Hate Sex Develop Feelings For Each Other or Hate Sex Turns Surprisingly Tender (or, you know, as tender as someone like Calamita is capable of lol) or absolute holy grail for me: Characters With Benefits Who've Never Kissed; When They Do It's A Line Crossing Intimate Moment.
• Time Loop - Antagonist Is Also Looping - You just know I have to request that tornado in Kansas serve as a device for some fun time looping. Rabbi is stuck repeating the same miserable mistakes of his life, “The Future is Now!” INDEED, as his future is now caught, like a tornado, running in circles with him trying to find some peace at the eye of a storm. Maybe each iteration involves Rabbi and Calamita killing each other or maybe they have to work together and maybe sometimes the only person on your side is your enemy.
• Last, feel free to work those canonical bitter Midwest winters in, particularly via the Stranded Together With No Way Home tag. Give me a blizzard and strand them somewhere cold and miserable, stuck relying on each other if they want to survive! Or strand them among mutual enemies, making a detente between them necessary if, again, they want to survive. Or, maybe it's a rescue op gone bad (They Thought No One Was Coming; Got Rescued By Unexpected Person) and now they're both stuck and stranded together.
Lemuel Cannon/Omie Sparkman
A Admires B's Fighting Skills; A Hopes Not To Reveal Affection For B But Oops Their Protective Side Just Came Out Now It's Obvious; Alternate Universe - Canonically Dead Character Lives; Badass In Distress; Bed Sharing Justified As It Just Being Practical; Character A Does Morally Questionable Things To Save B; Doesn't Think B Will Forgive Them; Character A Tries To Physically Fight Character B But B Refuses To Hurt Them; Character Is Tortured As Revenge For Something That Wasn't Their Fault; Characters Pretend That It's Not Actually Sex If It Doesn't Involve Penetration; Dangerous Morally Grey Person Utterly Loyal To Person They See As Good And Kind; Fighting - One Character Gets Off On Watching The Other One Fight; Fighting/Sparring As Foreplay; First-Time - A Patient With B's Clumsy But Enthusiastic Blow Job/Cunnilingus; Loyalty; My Moral Compass Is "What Do I Need To Do To Protect You?"; Reluctant Attraction - Develops While Forced To Work Together; Socially Expected Loyalty Arrangement Is Removed; A & B Remain Loyal Despite No Obligations; Teaching A Beginner How To Fight Unexpectedly Effective As Foreplay
• Alternate Universe - Canonically Dead Character Lives - Well, of course, first item on the menu here: fix-it fic! Maybe Omie makes it back from Kansas, in one piece or injured, but empty-handed and without Satchel. Does that leave him on the outs with the Cannon Limited? Is Lemuel maybe the only one willing to stand in his corner? And speaking of the back half of canon here: what happens after Loy's death? We know the Kansas City Mafia rises out of the ashes of this conflict and we know Satchel becomes Mike Milligan, but what becomes of Lemuel? And if Omie lives, where does he go? I'd pretty much love anything that plays around with the Socially Expected Loyalty Arrangement Is Removed; A & B Remain Loyal Despite No Obligations tag. Omie is no longer required to protect what remains of the Cannon family, but that doesn't stop him sticking close to Lemuel.
• Speaking of protecting the Cannon family, I love canon-divergent AUs, and I feel like there are a great many you could play around with here. Maybe after the drive-by shooting attempt Loy, in his anger and his fear, pulls Leon off as Lemuel's muscle and installs Omie instead. I would love fic that depicted that push-and-pull between them, "the reluctant prince of a king too kind for his own good and the king's blood knight." Omie definitely strikes me as being much more resigned and practical as to the violent ways of both the world and their racket as opposed to Lemuel's idealism, and that contrast, as well as their contrast in their roles in the Cannon Limited, is just delicious to me. (And if you want to play around with moral disagreements between Omie and Lemuel, the My Moral Compass Is "What Do I Need To Do To Protect You?" looks pretty inviting indeed.)
• Character Is Tortured As Revenge For Something That Wasn't Their Fault - Oh boy, this is me and my id shouting from the rooftops how bonkers into a fic where as a result of the shit going down between the Faddas and the Cannons, as retribution (for the shoot-out carried out by the Fargo syndicate on the Fadda house? For something else?) Lemuel is picked up and held same as the Cannon Limited held Gaetano––and more or less receives the same treatment. Enter Omie's eventual rescue, which still is unfortunately not soon enough.
• Fighting/Sparring As Foreplay; Teaching A Beginner How To Fight Unexpectedly Effective As Foreplay - Anything, anything at all!, where Omie teaches Lemuel how to box! The Intricate Rituals of teaching your boss's son how to defend himself! Or, maybe Lemuel starts spending his time watching Omie fight (and cue Fighting - One Character Gets Off On Watching The Other One Fight). Late-night underground boxing matches, Omie before canon when he was a star boxer, however you want to frame it, I am sure I will love it.
STAR WARS SEQUEL TRILOGY
Poe Dameron/Armitage Hux
Bad Guys Made Them Do It; Both Captured - Forced To Work Together To Escape; Breathplay; Captivity - Hurt/Comfort Between Fellow Captives Leads To Sex; Character A Nurses Character B Back To Health After B Nearly Killed A; Characters Exiled Together; Characters Have Sex As Part Of Diplomatic Negotiations And/Or Relations; Enemies To Allies Of Convenience To Lovers; Enemies To Lovers - Developing Inconvenient Feelings After A Sex Pollen Incident; Enemies To Lovers - Rough Sex With Good Guy As The Aggressor; Hate Sex - Characters Having Hate Sex Develop Feelings For Each Other; Hurt/Comfort - Circumstances Force Enemies To Patch Each Other Up; Resurrection - Came Back Wrong In A Dangerous Way; Seemingly Prudish And Prissy Character Is Unexpectedly Good At Dirty Talk; Sex Pollen - Only One Person Affected; Stranded On A Hostile Planet Together; Touch-Starved - Stoic Character Falls Apart When Someone Touches Them; Truth Serum Serves As Accidental Sex Pollen
• I will be honest, a single one of these tags and the enemy dynamic played up between them to the hilt, and I will be beyond delighted. I am always, always, always a sucker for enemies forced to work together, whether it's the Enemies to Allies of Convenience to Lovers or the catnip to my id Circumstances Force Enemies To Patch Each Other Up or Stranded On A Hostile Planet Together or any and all of the above. Maybe Poe did know Hux was the spy all along and Poe served as his point of contact with the Resistance. Or maybe the two of them shared in a plot to assassinate Kylo Ren or whoever else you want. Any sort of scenario that forces them to begrudgingly work together to achieve a greater goal and somewhere in there realize, uh oh, they've kind of developed feelings (or at least the desire to fuck each other)? I am all the way in.
• Both Captured - Forced To Work Together To Escape; Captivity - Hurt/Comfort Between Fellow Captives Leads To Sex - Consider this the absolute unchecked id portion of this request, lol. But, captivity galore! The both of them forced to work together and put their differences aside! Maybe one of them steps in unexpectedly to defend the other! Maybe they reluctantly begin to feel more than a "hey we're captured together here" kinship. Embrace any and all tropes associated the captivity theme; I'm all in.
• Forced intimacy and situations that force characters to have sex? A perennial favorite for me. Whether it's Bad Guys Made Them Do It or it's any variety of the Sex Pollen tags, or it's toying around with Truth Serum Serves as Accidental Sex Pollen, or if the sex they have to have has zero biological or chemical component and is instead a part of peace talks and diplomacy after the war, I love it all. (If you want to hit one out of the park and go the extra mile and combine all these tags and ideas in one fic? Color me impressed and eternally grateful.)
• Resurrection - Came Back Wrong In A Dangerous Way - “Somehow…
• Uh, and last: Breathplay. You know Hux would be into it.
SUCCESSION (TV 2018)
Kendall Roy/Siobhan "Shiv" Roy
A Gets Off On B Relaying Their Sexual Exploits; Characters With Benefits Who've Never Kissed; When They Do It's A Line Crossing Intimate Moment; Codependency - Actively Encouraging Each Other's Self-Destructive Tendencies; Cunnilingus So Good That Partner Has To Hold Them When Their Knees Buckle; Guilty Sex; Het Anal Sex; Incest - Discovered By Others; Incest - Having Threesomes With Non-Relatives While Wanting Only Each Other; Incest - Shame After Incestuous Relationship Becomes Public; Lovers To Enemies To Lovers; Outsider POV Finds Canon Protagonists' Typical Behavior To Be Terrifying; Ridiculously Gothic Atmosphere; Rough Sex As Unhealthy Coping Mechanism; Secret Relationship; Soulmates - Incestuous Soulmates Have To Keep It A Secret; Time Loop; We Both Know You Betrayed Me But Let's Sleep Together One Last Time Before The Consequences Hit; You Know The Vibes Of The Cordelia (2020) Movie Poster? THAT.
• Guilty Sex; Incest - Discovered By Others; Incest - Shame After Incestuous Relationship Becomes Public; Outsider POV Finds Canon Protagonists' Typical Behavior To Be Terrifying - The thing I always, always, ALWAYS love about fic that explores incest is the shame and the guilt of it all. I'm lumping all these tags together here, but by all means, only write one or pair them with different tags; they all just deal with the themes of regret and shame I am all about for these two. I think the both of them operate very differently when it comes to being called out or made to feel shame, and I would love to see that dichotomy play out, especially when the source of the shame is the fact they are fucking each other. Give me that nightmare as maybe another family member (Roman? Greg?) catches them or some gossip column makes public the fact the two of them have a longstanding incestuous relationship. I'd also love if you wanted to tackle outsider POV here, someone on the outside of their relationship looking in on them and horrified by what they see.
• Season 2 fallout!!! Does Shiv side against him, or do they manage to work through their mutual shit (including betrayal on her end) and team up? If they do team up, how much doubt is there on either side? I'd be all about the two of them embarking on a completely ill-advised sexual relationship as both an exercise of mutual distrust but also in a bizarre bid to even the score between them. Maybe Kendall wants something rough from Shiv, his own form of penance (hello, Rough Sex As Unhealthy Coping Mechanism). Or maybe it's Shiv for once, forcing herself to submit because that's the only way she can imagine herself asking forgiveness (without, of course, ever having to say the words out loud.)
• Lovers To Enemies To Lovers; We Both Know You Betrayed Me But Let's Sleep Together One Last Time Before The Consequences Hit - I would love to read would be an alternate Season 2 where Kendall and Shiv were fucking the entire time. My kingdom for it! Did it start after when Shiv comforted him? Tern Haven? All the way back at the Hamptons and Shiv's anger at Kendall took on a distinctly inappropriate and sexual bent? How does that play out with Shiv's betrayal, turning him over to their father as the blood sacrifice? (Obviously, the way my id demands that play out is emotionally freighted porn, lol.)
• I am also totally down for any scenario that brings a third party into play, whether it's going the threesome route (Incest - Having Threesomes With Non-Relatives While Wanting Only Each Other) (and for that, feel free to draw a canon character into the arrangement––Naomi? Rava? Stewy, maybe when they both were younger? I am struggling to imagine Tom, but I am not opposed lol)––or if it's one or the other trying to goad the other by talking about their encounters (A Gets Off On B Relaying Their Sexual Exploits).
• Soulmates - Incestuous Soulmates Have To Keep It A Secret - Normally this isn't a trope I'm super into, but oh boy, the idea of Shiv and Kendall as the most reluctant and disgusted soulmates in the world, who have to keep it a secret because, y'know, the incest of it all while at the same time being the one person the other could come closest to understanding best? That right there is delicious.
• Time Loop - Maybe Kendall keeps repeating the events of Shiv's wedding over and over again, trying in vain to stop himself from killing that cater waiter, only to invite worse events onto both himself and the family with each successive loop. Maybe it's Shiv, and she's stuck at Tern Haven, finding new and inventive ways to fuck up that dinner with each loop, but waking up every morning to have to do it again. Or maybe it's in the hospital, after Logan's stroke, and Shiv and Kendall are looping together, duking it out over who deserves to run the company in their father's incapacitation. However you want to play it, I am sure I will love it!
• If you are in need of a final dose of inspiration, let this photo be your guide; I think about it far, far too often.
TENET (2020)
Neil/The Protagonist
As a general note: I am totally fine if you want to refer to The Protagonist as The Protagonist or if you want to give him a name of your own invention, but I would prefer no first or second-person POV.
Bad Guys Made Them Do It; Captivity - Captured Together; Characters Are In Love But Duty Will Keep Them Apart Forever Until Something Makes Them Do It; Hurt/Comfort - Field Dressing Combat Injuries While Being Hunted By Adversaries; If I Must Solve A Dozen Geopolitical Problems Just To Have Sex With You Then I Will; Pining Characters Not Ready To Be In A Relationship Navigating Messy Feelings Post-Fuck Or Die; Proximity - Characters Must Be Touching Or Feel Pain; A Rescues B From Trouble B Knowingly Walked Into (B Thought They Could Handle It On Their Own); Sex Pollen - One Person Affected; Tending To Wounds; Time Loop; Time Travel Doesn't Work How Characters Think It Does; This Becomes A Problem; Trapped Together; Truth Serum Forces Character To Admit What They're Sexually Into; Undercover - Forced To Have Sex To Keep Cover; Whump - Character Hiding Injury/Illness Collapses; Whump - A Sacrifices Themself To Protect B; B Is Forced To Watch A Being Tortured
• I finally watched this movie a couple weeks ago, and I have not known peace ever since. I'M IN DEEP. And let me tell you, this tag? If I Must Solve A Dozen Geopolitical Problems Just To Have Sex With You Then I Will? It speaks to me on a deep soul level, lol. Have these two constantly thrust into danger and world-ending trouble and have the timing never be exactly right! I am so interested in everything about the shared time together, especially the future that is waiting for The Protagonist and the past for Neil.
• Bad Guys Made Them Do It, Characters Are In Love But Duty Will Keep Them Apart Forever Until Something Makes Them Do It - Maybe Andrei picked up on something between Neil and The Protagonist and for fun villain reasons decides to take some time out of plotted global annihilation and poke and play with that (and them) on his yacht or in Oslo.
• Hurt/Comfort - Field Dressing Combat Injuries While Being Hunted By Adversaries; Tending To Wounds - Get as disgustingly imaginative as you want with inverted injuries—I am always, always, ALWAYS a fan of body horror, and as this letter has made abundantly clear, always a fan of one person tenderly caring for another’s wounds (while developing feelings), so go wild, dear writer!
• Time Loop; Time Travel Doesn't Work How Characters Think It Does; This Becomes A Problem - Honestly, I don’t think I could explain the mechanics of the plot of this movie with any sort of finesse, empty head, thoughts only of these two in it. But! If you wanted to have an accidental side effect of all this inversion business be that a time loop was created—a cul-de-sac of sorts they accidentally created—and now they can’t get out, I’d be super into it. Or, maybe, The Protagonist refuses to accept Neil’s death, starts messing around with time with the express purpose of keeping Neil alive. Does it work? Are the consequences that much greater than he ever could have imagined? In his pursuit to save Neil, and by playing around with inversion and time and temporality, does The Protagonist inadvertently make himself into The Antagonist, thereby putting himself on a collision course with Neil?
• Trapped Together - In time, in one of those turnstiles, underground in a former nuclear missile silo—whatever! Stick them together somewhere and make them have to figure their way out.
• Truth Serum Forces Character To Admit What They're Sexually Into - Wry, amused Neil listening to a rescued and rambling Protagonist? Please. The other way around with a dumbfounded Protagonist who really, really needs Neil to stop talking; he’d beg him, but he’s pretty sure based on what he just heard, Neil would be really into that.