![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
YULETIDE 2021
I can't believe it's that time of year again, but HAPPY YULETIDE!
This is always my favorite time of year and I always hugely enjoy this exchange, and I hope you, mystery writer, have just as much fun this year. I love all the fandoms I've requested here, and I cannot wait to see what you write; I am sure I am going to love it. I am open to receiving fic of any rating, G to E, and the same goes for gen and ship fic. I have included mention of any ships I would be interested in receiving in the requests below.
As always, take what you want from this letter! I've offered some prompts, but if you have an idea in your head already, by all means, please run with it.
I can be found as arbitrarily on AO3 and widespindriftgaze on Tumblr.
Before we get into the likes and prompts and fandom details of this letter, three out of four of the fandoms I've requested are RPF and I am all about AUs for RPF fandoms. Feel free to go wild. I’ve suggested some AU ideas in the requests below, but by all means––go where you want to go. The fun part of RPF, to be honest, is often plunking them down into new universes, and if you agree with that, awesome, we are kindred spirits, I trust you entirely with whatever chosen milieu you might have in mind. Get highly specific if you wish! If you have a certain setting or universe you love to write about or are a super cool expert in, do it, dear writer. I guarantee I will love the outcome.
GENERAL LIKES
• unreliable narrators and/or characters that 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, both canon-divergent and AUs that place the characters in alternate settings or time periods
SMUT LIKES
• casual sex, or sex before/as feelings develop
• first time
• penetrative sex, vaginal and anal
• nonpenetrative sex, intercrural, frottage
• mutual masturbation
• fingering; fingering after fucking
• oral sex, including rimming
• wet and messy; comeplay; squirting
• switching; I have no top or bottom preferences
• size kink
• choking and breathplay
• orgasm delay or denial
• multiple orgasms; overstimulation; sex crying
• restraints; bondage, including honor bondage
• 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, bargain-making or ulterior motive
• bruising; 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
• bad sex; awkward sex; uncomfortable sex; sex where no one comes or only one party comes
• 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
• voyeurism
• under-negotiated kink; kink discovery; kink exploration
• under-negotiated D/s; D/s elements
DNWs: rape/non-con (dub-con is fine; see likes above for details); A/B/O or omegaverse; scat; 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); poetry
I am fine with mentions of COVID or details included of life as we know it now, but I would prefer it not be a focus of the fic; I am totally cool if you want to hand-wave its existence entirely.
OFF MENU WITH ED GAMBLE AND JAMES ACASTER (PODCAST)
↳ James Acaster; Ed Gamble; Domhnall Gleeson
» Ep: 99 Domhnall Gleeson
• You ever listen to something and feel like your entire brain just got cracked open like a big old walnut and your whole world was just rocked? That was me, listening to Domhnall Gleeson's episode of this podcast mid-road trip, and while the rocking turned out to be a flat tire, my point still stands. I enjoy this podcast in general, but this episode in particular, probably due to my own predisposition of a fan of Domhnall's, I LOVED. I greatly appreciated that Domhnall listens to the podcast, I love the story James told about seeing Domhnall in a play, I loved all that hilarious talk about The Strokes and how great all these dudes seemed to get along.
• Please, if you wish, run with the restaurant stuff! Either as it exists in the podcast universe––i.e., James is a waiter AND a genie––or if you want to My Dinner with Andre it up and plop the three of these dudes down for dinner somewhere and have a long, strange, talky meal together, I'd love it. I'd similarly love a restaurant AU, the three of them toiling away at some either struggling or fancy or fancily struggling restaurant. I am always a sucker for anything about the food world and the restaurant life, chefs and cooking, so needless to say, an AU like that, I would gobble right up (uh, no pun intended).
• Dinner party! Is this actually my favorite narrative trope of all time? It's more likely than you think. I really do love nothing more than setting a disparate group of people down around a table at someone's house and letting the fireworks go off. It's absolutely ripe for comedy, for drama, for both (and, uh, for drunken furtive makeouts in the kitchen while everyone else is still out at the table).
• Domhnall does have a background in sketch comedy, so. The road not taken, man. If you want to spin out an AU where rather than a successful film and TV career he instead spent his career toiling away in the Britcom world, a part of Ed and James's circle, I would love that.
• And, okay, we have to talk about THIS: “I’ve been holding this in for a long time, but I reckon if anyone’s going to play James in a film, I think it’s Domhnall, right?” Thank you, Ed, for planting such a thought in my brain that now has a stranglehold on me. Play around with that potential doppelgänger business any which way you might like, including James and Domhnall making a film together.
• And, uh, speaking of doppelgängers (as one often does):
James: “There was a point in time where there were a lot of photos of you and Oscar Isaac together—”
Domhnall: “Right.”
James: “—because you had been in a couple of films together, back-to-back and stuff. There’s a few photos of the two of you together, and on my twitter it would often get—photos of the two of you would get tweeted at me and Nish Kumar as the two of you in an alternate reality, basically, if the two of you were better looking. This is what you would look like. It was a nice little brief period in my life, y’know.”
Oh man, is there a lot to unpack here. Nish/James versus Oscar/Domhnall, alternate realities, doppelgängers: go wild, my friend. I love everything about this and will love anything you want to do with this idea. You can run far afield with the tone if you wish (I am thinking, for obvious reasons, Ex Machina vibes, if you want to get real ambitious) or route it in weird comedy––whatever you may like.
• I am 100% interested in ship fic here, and I am very much so down for any combination of these three. As I mentioned above, if you want to bring Nish and Oscar into this, it's absolutely not required, but I'd love that too.
SUCCESSION (TV 2018)
↳ Kendall Roy; Siobhan "Shiv" Roy
» Both seasons (and the new third season) are available on HBO, HBO Max, whatever the platform is technically called now lol
» Season 3 trailer
A quick housekeeping note: I know the series is only just (finally!) coming back, right smack in the middle of Yuletide sign-ups. If you wish to integrate the new season into the fic you write, please do; I will be keeping up as it airs week-to-week. If you'd rather not, also cool! There's more than enough content to draw from in the first two seasons. I will, however, try to update and edit this letter if necessary, i.e., if anything in the new episodes sends me down a fic prompting rabbit hole.
• I will also say upfront I do ship these two and would be very happy to receive incest fic, though please, do not think that is required. Their canonical relationship fascinates me as is, so whichever direction you go, I'll love it. A canon line I think about every goddamn day of my life is when Kendall is trying to defend his father to Naomi on the yacht and he says, “He loves me. He does. I think it’s just a wrong kind of love expression.” THE WRONG KIND OF LOVE EXPRESSION, aka the fulcrum on which any of my interest in incest ships for this canon rests on.
• Let me tell you, since seeing the Season 3 trailer, not a moment has passed where I have not thought about Kendall saying to Shiv, "Right now, I'm the real you," and Shiv's response: "Sure, and I'm the real you." I really do love it when canon straight up distills a character dynamic into everything I love and relish, and that bit of context-free dialogue right there? Baby, that's it. Identity as tied to family, dysfunctional sibling relationships, weaponizing not only that concept of identity but how well you know someone––delicious.
• I would absolutely adore an AU where Kendall is the prodigal son who returns for his father's birthday after years of absence, intending to take the family business out from under him and his siblings only for Logan to suffer from a stroke. I think it's such a fun thought exercise to consider what sort of man Kendall might've been able to become had he been able to escape out from under Logan's boot heel. Who would Kendall be if he could "be his own man"? You could also go a different route with this AU, and instead Kendall took the advice he gave Naomi at Tern Haven: he got out. He took the money and he walked, he went on to live a life of dumb leisure, the poster child for idle wealth. And maybe it's Shiv who Logan had tapped as his successor only to fuck her over, much as he did Kendall in the pilot. Flipping around the circumstances of these characters and seeing what it does to their dynamic––sounds like great fun to me.
• If you are interested in going the ship fic route, get as nasty and as weird, as dark, as you want with them. I think both characters lend themselves to dominance and submission a little too well, and I would be more than curious to see how that might play out between them. I’d also adore any hurt/comfort with these two, where even when there’s comfort to be offered there’s always the doubt there’s an ulterior motive afoot. It's part of a bigger play. I would love a fic that played with that competitive spirit between them, both how it spurs them on and how it divides them. Underneath that though there is genuine (albeit, curdled) care, and if you want to tangle that more into something toxic and fucked up (and, if you’re willing, sexual), I would love that. And as a brief sidebar: if you choose to go the incest route: the guilt, the shame, and the horror (for lack of a better term) is definitely a feature not a bug for me. I’m not interested in it being accepted even by themselves or if others find out where they’re totally cool about it. The secrecy and the fear of others finding out coupled with self-disgust for wanting it? That’s what I’m definitely into, especially for these two.
• And look, if you want to get real vile, let this little (mildly spoiler-y?) tidbit from Vulture's review guide you (and might it lead you straight into the terrible, the dirty, and, if you're like me, to thoughts of tit-fucking, lol).
• While I only requested Kendall and Shiv, I am more than happy if you want to bring Roman into it, in whatever capacity. I am especially interested in anything pre-canon. There is nothing more appealing to me than bored rich kids Kendall, Roman, and Shiv, whether it’s spending the summer wasting away at their father’s Summer Palace in the Hamptons or stuck at their mother’s in the dead of winter. That competition between them for their father’s love spilling over into how they each deal with one another and any affection they feel towards each other? Delicious. I would love more scenes like the boathouse scene before Shiv’s wedding, the three of them getting stoned and goofing around. On a completely different end of the spectrum, I would love fic set on the yacht after Kendall has offered himself up as "the blood sacrifice." Give me that last night before the gallows energy! Or, expand on this (cruelly!) cut scene from that episode!
• Last, this photo makes my brain feel like it's on fire, so if you are similarly inspired, please, write whatever that fic is.
TASKMASTER (NEW ZEALAND TV) RPF
↳ David Correos; Guy Montgomery, Paul Williams
» Series 2 used to all be uploaded to YouTube, but? Every time I check, there seems to be a different assortment of episodes available to watch, so I apologize I don't have a ready link! But, have a video compilation of that series's contestants being absolutely wild (and the second part of that compilation).
» Have another video I watch probably daily, aka David Correos writing a diss track
» Paul Williams's episode on Taskmaster: The Podcast
» Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont-Spelling Bee 2021 #1; the gang's all here!
» And have some lovely behind the scenes photos from Paul Williams's instagram
• After falling down the Taskmaster rabbit hole this past spring and finding myself without any more episodes of the UK series to watch this summer, I turned to the New Zealand series. And oh boy, did I love it. Series 2 of the New Zealand series ranks as one of my favorite Taskmaster series ever; the cast of contestants, what a hilariously unhinged lot. Consider this permission to feel free to throw in anyone else from the series—Jeremy, Laura, Urzila (the queen of my heart), Matt, Angella’s little cameo (PLEASE) if you so desire.
• I, of course, would love any fic set in the Taskmaster series/universe. Invent your own tasks! Invent weirder tasks! Or, in a similar vein, I would love to read about backstage antics, both in the studio and while filming the tasks. On the Taskmaster podcast, Paul mentioned that he wanted to sleep in the Taskmaster house, so, you know, feel free to play around with that.
• I am more than happy to receive any combination of these three if you wish to write ship fic. David/Guy, David/Paul, Guy/Paul, David/Guy/Paul, go to town. (Also, I am totally fine if you do not write all three requested characters if an idea occurs to you that’d be better focused on only two of them!) There's more than enough content provided by the series, that's for sure. Whether it's Guy's t-shirts with Paul's face on them or Guy getting Paul to break in studio while talking about his Christmas song (the phrase "going hammer and tongs on a fox" is still rattling around in my head) or their dates (an actual task!) with Paul or just David's....everything with Paul. He took him to Christchurch! He met his family! Or, David and Guy grabbing lunch together when the Abe Lincoln task happened? All details I adore. And one extra detail I adore: as mentioned above, David Writes A Diss Track is hands-down one of my favorite Taskmaster moments ever, and I especially love the looks on Paul's and Guy's faces as David goes increasingly violent and unhinged, culminating in rapping that he is going to drown the other team in their own blood.
• Reunions, baby! Get the gang back together! Whether it's in a professional context or just guys being dudes being friends at a pub, I am incredibly easy to please on this front.
• Similarly: put them on tour! At a comedy festival! I find everything about that lifestyle interesting (the potential for antics is so high!) and I would be down for however you might want to explore that. I am always a sucker for the epistolary format, so if you wanted to mock up fake tweets or other social media, or if you wanted to depict the comedy tour through exchanged text messages amongst the three or their social media postings or emails, I'm totally game. Similarly, if you want to bring in other comedians into the fic (hello, Rose Matafeo), by all means: the comedy world is your oyster.
• And, uh? Get porny with it, my friend! (A common refrain for me). If you should want to, there is plenty of weird inspiration this series can provide on that front. I mean, the sheer bulk of nudity these dudes brought to the table (and the lab) alone. Or, the prize task when Laura brought in a voucher for a kiss (with tongue!) only for David to bring a voucher that promises to up all the other vouchers by 10%, which, per Guy means a thumb up the bum. Or, Paul, while as guest on the podcast, describing David as "committed and disgusting," which includes an anecdote about David sticking a bike pump up his ass during his Edinburgh Fringe show. I'd definitely call that committed and disgusting, and I'd definitely say, fic-wise, that certainly opens the door for more. And, look, I know it was the other team, but the "most ass-eating threats in a rap song"––that's certainly something, isn't it.
TASKMASTER (UK TV) RPF
↳ Charlotte Ritchie; Mike Wozniak
» Series 11 can be watched via the official Taskmaster YouTube channel if you're in the UK; if you're not, well, wink wink.
» Charlotte Ritchie's episode on Taskmaster: The Podcast
» Mike Wozniak on Taskmaster: The Podcast [1, 2]
» Taskmaster cast interviews: Charlotte; Mike
» Outtake video with Charlotte's eagleeye ear for, uh, Mike's bodily noises
» Outtake video where Charlotte's and Mike's familiarity? affinity? for being bound? is discussed?
» Have some entirely too entertaining face journeys they both travel where the other is concerned (can't forget her mohawk reveal reaction shot)
» ... and the both of them checking each other out while dressed as llamas.
• This series was my intro to Taskmaster, and oh man, did I fall in and fall hard. I was utterly charmed by these contestants, and the general insanity and humiliation-centric format of the show. These two in particular, idek, their vibes lit up some previously untapped bit of my brain (did it start for me in the very first episode when she knocked over his bucket tower? MAYBE), and let's just say, by the time their Slap and Tong showdown happened, I was all in.
• As a blanket note, feel free to include the rest of that cast from that series, including Greg and Alex, or anyone from any of the other series. An additional blanket note, in the event you decide to write ship fic: infidelity is a feature not a bug to me, but if you'd rather hand-wave existing partners or spouses, that is equally totally cool with me.
• Same as for the Taskmaster NZ prompts above, if you want to play as Taskmaster yourself and invent your own tasks, by all means, get going. Like I said above, get wild, get weird with it. Maybe that's some sort of non-COVID reunion episode and they do more tasks, maybe this time they're a team. If you, like me, are inclined in the ship-y direction, I always love some forced proximity, inadvertent touching, accidental stimulation. The works, baby. I am perpetually haunted by the outtakes above, both the one where they talk about being bound in clingfilm and gaffer tape and both of their passing (or otherwise) familiarity with it and the one where Charlotte feels the need to bring up the fact Mike's throat, when swallowing, makes a similar noise to, well, his anus. So, uh, I don't even know what to prompt here but if either of those make you feel as crazy as I do, run with it. Or simply run with lovely, kind, unofficial children's TV presenter with more than a little bite waiting beneath that facade, and she is more than happy to rib and make fun of Mike. (Another thing I am haunted by: Mike's first appearance on the podcast, where he describes Charlotte as bolder than they think.)
• And okay, speaking of those outtakes and their content, you know where I'm going here: porny Taskmaster. You know how I just said feel free to invent your own tasks and get wild and weird. Well, similarly feel free to go the extra mile and get straight-up pornographic. I'll love you, and your imagination, forever. I will say one last thing: sex pollen loose in the lab. I have nothing further to add.
• I'd be all for fic about the both of them working together, maybe a TV series, a movie, another panel show, live comedy, theatre––your choice. One thing I have always loved about RPF where actors are concerned is playing around with that potential bleed between the real and the fictional (hey, RPF in a nutshell!), what's scripted and what isn't, how performance might inform reality and the other way around. Any way you might want to play around with that––including through the epistolary format, i.e., reviews, fake tweets or social media, articles, or emails between them, text messages, snippets of a fake script versus the transcript of their actual performance––I guarantee I will love it.
• AUs! All the AUs! To start with, in one of the linked interviews Charlotte talks about seeing Mike perform live ten years ago, in Edinburgh when she was part of a sketch show that performed after him. If you want to run the AU route and have them both be on tour, struggling comedians, hitting the festival circuit, I would love that. I'd similarly love if you wanted to leave reality behind completely: detectives AU, a hapless duo who try to solve crime in some sleepy village. Play it comedically or hard-boiled, have them bite off more than they can chew, or go ahead and stick them in the city and get gritty with it: I'd love it all. And, look, he is a doctor. If that's an AU you want to play around with, you have your prime audience right here.
• Have an unbearably niche AU before we go: Game Night AU. First of all, I love that movie. Second of all, even thinking about some Taskmaster-adjacent antics and hijinks going disastrously wrong and they find themselves in some sort of high-stakes adventurous nightmare makes my brain all but whir out of my head. Is this really just an excuse for me to prompt a take-off of one of my favorite awful scenes (uh, gore warning)?, aka amateur bullet extraction in a parking lot? More likely than you think, and for me, it's made all the better by imagining Mike, with his medical experience, enduring Charlotte's...very much lack of that.
Truly, thank you, dear author, and happy writing! I hope you have a wonderful, and fun, Yuletide season.
• 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
• voyeurism
• under-negotiated kink; kink discovery; kink exploration
• under-negotiated D/s; D/s elements
DNWs: rape/non-con (dub-con is fine; see likes above for details); A/B/O or omegaverse; scat; 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); poetry
I am fine with mentions of COVID or details included of life as we know it now, but I would prefer it not be a focus of the fic; I am totally cool if you want to hand-wave its existence entirely.
OFF MENU WITH ED GAMBLE AND JAMES ACASTER (PODCAST)
↳ James Acaster; Ed Gamble; Domhnall Gleeson
» Ep: 99 Domhnall Gleeson
• You ever listen to something and feel like your entire brain just got cracked open like a big old walnut and your whole world was just rocked? That was me, listening to Domhnall Gleeson's episode of this podcast mid-road trip, and while the rocking turned out to be a flat tire, my point still stands. I enjoy this podcast in general, but this episode in particular, probably due to my own predisposition of a fan of Domhnall's, I LOVED. I greatly appreciated that Domhnall listens to the podcast, I love the story James told about seeing Domhnall in a play, I loved all that hilarious talk about The Strokes and how great all these dudes seemed to get along.
• Please, if you wish, run with the restaurant stuff! Either as it exists in the podcast universe––i.e., James is a waiter AND a genie––or if you want to My Dinner with Andre it up and plop the three of these dudes down for dinner somewhere and have a long, strange, talky meal together, I'd love it. I'd similarly love a restaurant AU, the three of them toiling away at some either struggling or fancy or fancily struggling restaurant. I am always a sucker for anything about the food world and the restaurant life, chefs and cooking, so needless to say, an AU like that, I would gobble right up (uh, no pun intended).
• Dinner party! Is this actually my favorite narrative trope of all time? It's more likely than you think. I really do love nothing more than setting a disparate group of people down around a table at someone's house and letting the fireworks go off. It's absolutely ripe for comedy, for drama, for both (and, uh, for drunken furtive makeouts in the kitchen while everyone else is still out at the table).
• Domhnall does have a background in sketch comedy, so. The road not taken, man. If you want to spin out an AU where rather than a successful film and TV career he instead spent his career toiling away in the Britcom world, a part of Ed and James's circle, I would love that.
• And, okay, we have to talk about THIS: “I’ve been holding this in for a long time, but I reckon if anyone’s going to play James in a film, I think it’s Domhnall, right?” Thank you, Ed, for planting such a thought in my brain that now has a stranglehold on me. Play around with that potential doppelgänger business any which way you might like, including James and Domhnall making a film together.
• And, uh, speaking of doppelgängers (as one often does):
James: “There was a point in time where there were a lot of photos of you and Oscar Isaac together—”
Domhnall: “Right.”
James: “—because you had been in a couple of films together, back-to-back and stuff. There’s a few photos of the two of you together, and on my twitter it would often get—photos of the two of you would get tweeted at me and Nish Kumar as the two of you in an alternate reality, basically, if the two of you were better looking. This is what you would look like. It was a nice little brief period in my life, y’know.”
Oh man, is there a lot to unpack here. Nish/James versus Oscar/Domhnall, alternate realities, doppelgängers: go wild, my friend. I love everything about this and will love anything you want to do with this idea. You can run far afield with the tone if you wish (I am thinking, for obvious reasons, Ex Machina vibes, if you want to get real ambitious) or route it in weird comedy––whatever you may like.
• I am 100% interested in ship fic here, and I am very much so down for any combination of these three. As I mentioned above, if you want to bring Nish and Oscar into this, it's absolutely not required, but I'd love that too.
SUCCESSION (TV 2018)
↳ Kendall Roy; Siobhan "Shiv" Roy
» Both seasons (and the new third season) are available on HBO, HBO Max, whatever the platform is technically called now lol
» Season 3 trailer
A quick housekeeping note: I know the series is only just (finally!) coming back, right smack in the middle of Yuletide sign-ups. If you wish to integrate the new season into the fic you write, please do; I will be keeping up as it airs week-to-week. If you'd rather not, also cool! There's more than enough content to draw from in the first two seasons. I will, however, try to update and edit this letter if necessary, i.e., if anything in the new episodes sends me down a fic prompting rabbit hole.
• I will also say upfront I do ship these two and would be very happy to receive incest fic, though please, do not think that is required. Their canonical relationship fascinates me as is, so whichever direction you go, I'll love it. A canon line I think about every goddamn day of my life is when Kendall is trying to defend his father to Naomi on the yacht and he says, “He loves me. He does. I think it’s just a wrong kind of love expression.” THE WRONG KIND OF LOVE EXPRESSION, aka the fulcrum on which any of my interest in incest ships for this canon rests on.
• Let me tell you, since seeing the Season 3 trailer, not a moment has passed where I have not thought about Kendall saying to Shiv, "Right now, I'm the real you," and Shiv's response: "Sure, and I'm the real you." I really do love it when canon straight up distills a character dynamic into everything I love and relish, and that bit of context-free dialogue right there? Baby, that's it. Identity as tied to family, dysfunctional sibling relationships, weaponizing not only that concept of identity but how well you know someone––delicious.
• I would absolutely adore an AU where Kendall is the prodigal son who returns for his father's birthday after years of absence, intending to take the family business out from under him and his siblings only for Logan to suffer from a stroke. I think it's such a fun thought exercise to consider what sort of man Kendall might've been able to become had he been able to escape out from under Logan's boot heel. Who would Kendall be if he could "be his own man"? You could also go a different route with this AU, and instead Kendall took the advice he gave Naomi at Tern Haven: he got out. He took the money and he walked, he went on to live a life of dumb leisure, the poster child for idle wealth. And maybe it's Shiv who Logan had tapped as his successor only to fuck her over, much as he did Kendall in the pilot. Flipping around the circumstances of these characters and seeing what it does to their dynamic––sounds like great fun to me.
• If you are interested in going the ship fic route, get as nasty and as weird, as dark, as you want with them. I think both characters lend themselves to dominance and submission a little too well, and I would be more than curious to see how that might play out between them. I’d also adore any hurt/comfort with these two, where even when there’s comfort to be offered there’s always the doubt there’s an ulterior motive afoot. It's part of a bigger play. I would love a fic that played with that competitive spirit between them, both how it spurs them on and how it divides them. Underneath that though there is genuine (albeit, curdled) care, and if you want to tangle that more into something toxic and fucked up (and, if you’re willing, sexual), I would love that. And as a brief sidebar: if you choose to go the incest route: the guilt, the shame, and the horror (for lack of a better term) is definitely a feature not a bug for me. I’m not interested in it being accepted even by themselves or if others find out where they’re totally cool about it. The secrecy and the fear of others finding out coupled with self-disgust for wanting it? That’s what I’m definitely into, especially for these two.
• And look, if you want to get real vile, let this little (mildly spoiler-y?) tidbit from Vulture's review guide you (and might it lead you straight into the terrible, the dirty, and, if you're like me, to thoughts of tit-fucking, lol).
• While I only requested Kendall and Shiv, I am more than happy if you want to bring Roman into it, in whatever capacity. I am especially interested in anything pre-canon. There is nothing more appealing to me than bored rich kids Kendall, Roman, and Shiv, whether it’s spending the summer wasting away at their father’s Summer Palace in the Hamptons or stuck at their mother’s in the dead of winter. That competition between them for their father’s love spilling over into how they each deal with one another and any affection they feel towards each other? Delicious. I would love more scenes like the boathouse scene before Shiv’s wedding, the three of them getting stoned and goofing around. On a completely different end of the spectrum, I would love fic set on the yacht after Kendall has offered himself up as "the blood sacrifice." Give me that last night before the gallows energy! Or, expand on this (cruelly!) cut scene from that episode!
• Last, this photo makes my brain feel like it's on fire, so if you are similarly inspired, please, write whatever that fic is.
TASKMASTER (NEW ZEALAND TV) RPF
↳ David Correos; Guy Montgomery, Paul Williams
» Series 2 used to all be uploaded to YouTube, but? Every time I check, there seems to be a different assortment of episodes available to watch, so I apologize I don't have a ready link! But, have a video compilation of that series's contestants being absolutely wild (and the second part of that compilation).
» Have another video I watch probably daily, aka David Correos writing a diss track
» Paul Williams's episode on Taskmaster: The Podcast
» Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont-Spelling Bee 2021 #1; the gang's all here!
» And have some lovely behind the scenes photos from Paul Williams's instagram
• After falling down the Taskmaster rabbit hole this past spring and finding myself without any more episodes of the UK series to watch this summer, I turned to the New Zealand series. And oh boy, did I love it. Series 2 of the New Zealand series ranks as one of my favorite Taskmaster series ever; the cast of contestants, what a hilariously unhinged lot. Consider this permission to feel free to throw in anyone else from the series—Jeremy, Laura, Urzila (the queen of my heart), Matt, Angella’s little cameo (PLEASE) if you so desire.
• I, of course, would love any fic set in the Taskmaster series/universe. Invent your own tasks! Invent weirder tasks! Or, in a similar vein, I would love to read about backstage antics, both in the studio and while filming the tasks. On the Taskmaster podcast, Paul mentioned that he wanted to sleep in the Taskmaster house, so, you know, feel free to play around with that.
• I am more than happy to receive any combination of these three if you wish to write ship fic. David/Guy, David/Paul, Guy/Paul, David/Guy/Paul, go to town. (Also, I am totally fine if you do not write all three requested characters if an idea occurs to you that’d be better focused on only two of them!) There's more than enough content provided by the series, that's for sure. Whether it's Guy's t-shirts with Paul's face on them or Guy getting Paul to break in studio while talking about his Christmas song (the phrase "going hammer and tongs on a fox" is still rattling around in my head) or their dates (an actual task!) with Paul or just David's....everything with Paul. He took him to Christchurch! He met his family! Or, David and Guy grabbing lunch together when the Abe Lincoln task happened? All details I adore. And one extra detail I adore: as mentioned above, David Writes A Diss Track is hands-down one of my favorite Taskmaster moments ever, and I especially love the looks on Paul's and Guy's faces as David goes increasingly violent and unhinged, culminating in rapping that he is going to drown the other team in their own blood.
• Reunions, baby! Get the gang back together! Whether it's in a professional context or just guys being dudes being friends at a pub, I am incredibly easy to please on this front.
• Similarly: put them on tour! At a comedy festival! I find everything about that lifestyle interesting (the potential for antics is so high!) and I would be down for however you might want to explore that. I am always a sucker for the epistolary format, so if you wanted to mock up fake tweets or other social media, or if you wanted to depict the comedy tour through exchanged text messages amongst the three or their social media postings or emails, I'm totally game. Similarly, if you want to bring in other comedians into the fic (hello, Rose Matafeo), by all means: the comedy world is your oyster.
• And, uh? Get porny with it, my friend! (A common refrain for me). If you should want to, there is plenty of weird inspiration this series can provide on that front. I mean, the sheer bulk of nudity these dudes brought to the table (and the lab) alone. Or, the prize task when Laura brought in a voucher for a kiss (with tongue!) only for David to bring a voucher that promises to up all the other vouchers by 10%, which, per Guy means a thumb up the bum. Or, Paul, while as guest on the podcast, describing David as "committed and disgusting," which includes an anecdote about David sticking a bike pump up his ass during his Edinburgh Fringe show. I'd definitely call that committed and disgusting, and I'd definitely say, fic-wise, that certainly opens the door for more. And, look, I know it was the other team, but the "most ass-eating threats in a rap song"––that's certainly something, isn't it.
TASKMASTER (UK TV) RPF
↳ Charlotte Ritchie; Mike Wozniak
» Series 11 can be watched via the official Taskmaster YouTube channel if you're in the UK; if you're not, well, wink wink.
» Charlotte Ritchie's episode on Taskmaster: The Podcast
» Mike Wozniak on Taskmaster: The Podcast [1, 2]
» Taskmaster cast interviews: Charlotte; Mike
» Outtake video with Charlotte's eagle
» Outtake video where Charlotte's and Mike's familiarity? affinity? for being bound? is discussed?
» Have some entirely too entertaining face journeys they both travel where the other is concerned (can't forget her mohawk reveal reaction shot)
» ... and the both of them checking each other out while dressed as llamas.
• This series was my intro to Taskmaster, and oh man, did I fall in and fall hard. I was utterly charmed by these contestants, and the general insanity and humiliation-centric format of the show. These two in particular, idek, their vibes lit up some previously untapped bit of my brain (did it start for me in the very first episode when she knocked over his bucket tower? MAYBE), and let's just say, by the time their Slap and Tong showdown happened, I was all in.
• As a blanket note, feel free to include the rest of that cast from that series, including Greg and Alex, or anyone from any of the other series. An additional blanket note, in the event you decide to write ship fic: infidelity is a feature not a bug to me, but if you'd rather hand-wave existing partners or spouses, that is equally totally cool with me.
• Same as for the Taskmaster NZ prompts above, if you want to play as Taskmaster yourself and invent your own tasks, by all means, get going. Like I said above, get wild, get weird with it. Maybe that's some sort of non-COVID reunion episode and they do more tasks, maybe this time they're a team. If you, like me, are inclined in the ship-y direction, I always love some forced proximity, inadvertent touching, accidental stimulation. The works, baby. I am perpetually haunted by the outtakes above, both the one where they talk about being bound in clingfilm and gaffer tape and both of their passing (or otherwise) familiarity with it and the one where Charlotte feels the need to bring up the fact Mike's throat, when swallowing, makes a similar noise to, well, his anus. So, uh, I don't even know what to prompt here but if either of those make you feel as crazy as I do, run with it. Or simply run with lovely, kind, unofficial children's TV presenter with more than a little bite waiting beneath that facade, and she is more than happy to rib and make fun of Mike. (Another thing I am haunted by: Mike's first appearance on the podcast, where he describes Charlotte as bolder than they think.)
• And okay, speaking of those outtakes and their content, you know where I'm going here: porny Taskmaster. You know how I just said feel free to invent your own tasks and get wild and weird. Well, similarly feel free to go the extra mile and get straight-up pornographic. I'll love you, and your imagination, forever. I will say one last thing: sex pollen loose in the lab. I have nothing further to add.
• I'd be all for fic about the both of them working together, maybe a TV series, a movie, another panel show, live comedy, theatre––your choice. One thing I have always loved about RPF where actors are concerned is playing around with that potential bleed between the real and the fictional (hey, RPF in a nutshell!), what's scripted and what isn't, how performance might inform reality and the other way around. Any way you might want to play around with that––including through the epistolary format, i.e., reviews, fake tweets or social media, articles, or emails between them, text messages, snippets of a fake script versus the transcript of their actual performance––I guarantee I will love it.
• AUs! All the AUs! To start with, in one of the linked interviews Charlotte talks about seeing Mike perform live ten years ago, in Edinburgh when she was part of a sketch show that performed after him. If you want to run the AU route and have them both be on tour, struggling comedians, hitting the festival circuit, I would love that. I'd similarly love if you wanted to leave reality behind completely: detectives AU, a hapless duo who try to solve crime in some sleepy village. Play it comedically or hard-boiled, have them bite off more than they can chew, or go ahead and stick them in the city and get gritty with it: I'd love it all. And, look, he is a doctor. If that's an AU you want to play around with, you have your prime audience right here.
• Have an unbearably niche AU before we go: Game Night AU. First of all, I love that movie. Second of all, even thinking about some Taskmaster-adjacent antics and hijinks going disastrously wrong and they find themselves in some sort of high-stakes adventurous nightmare makes my brain all but whir out of my head. Is this really just an excuse for me to prompt a take-off of one of my favorite awful scenes (uh, gore warning)?, aka amateur bullet extraction in a parking lot? More likely than you think, and for me, it's made all the better by imagining Mike, with his medical experience, enduring Charlotte's...very much lack of that.
Truly, thank you, dear author, and happy writing! I hope you have a wonderful, and fun, Yuletide season.
no subject
no subject
I'm not very active on discord, but I'd love to join! Thank you so much, both for the invite and for the truly delightful comment here <3
no subject
no subject