YULETIDE 2023

[revolver]

Incredibly, it's that time of year again! Yuletide is a perennial favorite of mine, and I am so excited to participate––and to see what you write! I am open to any rating, from G to E, and gen or ship fic with some suggested prompts and ideas in the letter below. Everything in this letter is suggestion and merely that; if you already have an idea, please! Run with it!

For each fandom, my gift must feature all characters requested. And I am open to treats! I can be found as arbitrarily on AO3, widespindriftgaze on tumblr, and __arbitrarily on twitter/x/whatever we call it these days.


GENERAL LIKES
• character study
• non-linear storytelling, playing around with timelines, parallel storylines, anything wonky with narrative structure
• backstory and pre-canon
• missing scenes
• outsider POV
• epistolary fic, including emails, letters, correspondence, in-universe articles, etc.
• scene-setting, lush details
• unreliable narrators and/or characters that lie to themselves
• messy characters; human disasters; characters that lurch from one disaster to another
• characters with minimal emotional maturity or self-awareness; conversely, characters with too much self-awareness, too deep in their heads, overthinking everything
• characters in denial they are attracted to each other, denying feelings, denying feelings even though they are already fucking each other
• super messy, complicated, and difficult to categorize relationships between characters
• secret relationships and secret affections
• dysfunctional families and dysfunctional relationships
• morally gray and/or morally compromised characters
• moral ambiguity; moral decay; corruption
• mentor/protege relationships
• power dynamics between characters; power imbalances; shifting power between characters; power struggles
• 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 colleagues
• intimacy in all forms, emotional and/or physical, from domestic and lived-in to unexpected, fraught, and inappropriate
• sexual tension, resolved or unresolved
• blurring the line between professional and personal relationships
• characters who have to reap what they sow and deal with the consequences of their actions; 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
• codependency, both healthy and unhealthy
• loyalty and/or loyalty kink
• betrayal, or fear of betrayal
• infidelity, as well as any guilt or shame associated with it
• mind games, mindfuckery, manipulation
• politics; political theatre; power plays; machiavellian machinations, but successful or otherwise
• identity porn, identity issues, undercover casefic
• on the road, travel, road trips, and the entire vibe that goes with it
• stranding characters in a remote or isolated location, potentially in a high-stress situation, and making them have to confront their issues with each other (sexily, for bonus points)
• AUs, both canon-divergent and AUs that insert the characters into alternate time periods and/or settings


SMUT LIKES
• character study via porn
• intimacy and/or trust demonstrated via sex acts
• penetrative sex, vaginal and anal
• nonpenetrative sex, intercrural, frottage
• mutual masturbation or masturbating together, in-person or otherwise (virtually, phone sex, dream sharing)
• fingering, fingering after fucking
• oral sex, including rimming
• casual sex, or sex before/as feelings develop
• friends or enemies or colleagues (or somehow all of the above!) with benefits
• first time
• wet and messy; comeplay; squirting
• size kink
• choking and breathplay
• edging; orgasm delay or denial
• multiple orgasms; overstimulation; sex crying
• bruising; biting
• restraints; bonding, 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
• drunk sex
• hate sex
• rough sex; manhandling and/or fighting/arguing leads to sex
• bad sex; awkward sex; uncomfortable sex; sex where no one comes or only one party comes
• sex as ill-advised attempt at communication and/or intimacy between characters
• sex as unhealthy coping mechanism
• voyeurism
• under-negotiated kink; kink discovery; kink exploration
• dynamics that lend themselves to D/s-vibes; under-negotiated D/s; D/s elements


DNWs: unrequested rape/non-con (dub-con is fine; see likes above for details); A/B/O or omegaverse; scat; formal or lifestyle BDSM; unrequested asexual or trans headcanons; kid fic, either via de-ageing requested characters or focus on parenthood/raising kids (mention of canonical children is fine); unrequested pregnancy/mpreg; unrequested poly relationships; on-page depiction of sex for characters under the age of 16




BIRNAM WOOD – ELEANOR CATTON
↳ Mira Bunting; Robert Lemoine; Shelley Noakes



A note upfront: I'm waiving my DNW for poly relationships here as I would love to see what sort of bizarre arrangement results with this trio of characters. 

I really enjoyed this novel, and I totally understand that Catton was going for a very plotty eco-thriller, which––loved it, great fun, I had a blast, but! I found myself about mid-way through the novel wishing for a brief detour into an exploration of the knotty, fucky triangle that was developing among Mira, Shelley, and Lemoine. A friend of mine said that what she wanted was a Sally Rooney-esque meditation on Mira and Shelley’s relationship, and I found myself wanting something similar, especially with the injection of Lemoine’s cash and Lemoine himself does to them. And if asking for that isn’t what Yuletide is for, then I don’t know what is! So please, if you like me want to dig in and explore any angle of this, set plot aside and go long with their conflicting understandings of each, petty jealousies, resentments, desires––I not only invite but beg you to do so. 

I also really enjoyed in the novel how much of a theme lack of privacy and surveillance was. Shelley keeping tabs on Mira’s whereabouts on a shared tracker app, Lemoine making his billions in drone tech, that he spends much of the novel surveilling Birnam Wood––and when he and Mira first meet he shows her that he knew her name because his phone had detected hers as a nearby device. I loved how this played throughout the novel, and I think it could be something very fun to work with fic-wise. Especially if you wanted to lean from eco-thriller into erotic thriller. Tied to that idea of surveillance, something I really loved about the novel, and in the quoted bit above, is how everyone is seen by each other (as well as here, how not only Lemoine sees Mira but how he sees a use for her). Shelley sees Mira’s infatuation with Lemoine and she can see that Lemoine sees it, but she can’t see the rest, how Lemoine is using Mira to his own ends, but she can see how it’s like he wanted me to think he knew what I was thinking. I find all of this endlessly fascinating! Surveillance, be it intentional or accidental; voyeurism, be it intentional or accidental, consensual or not; how tech can be used to spy on each other; the paranoia incumbent to thinking you're being watched––all of it.

One of my favorite bits of the novel was when Lemoine came out to spend the night with the collective and the passive aggression between Shelley and Mira crests with Lemoine in the middle. If you wanted to play that out longer, play around with that dynamic, I would love that. There’s just something so intriguing about the man between them being a probably-psychopathic billionaire; the potential fuckiness is just too good. Furthermore, if you wanted to linger longer in the aftermath of that night, namely Mira fully embracing the Lady Macbeth-esque descent into guilt-ridden "out damned spot!" territory, I'd gobble that up. 

I'm always in favor of outsider POV, and if you wanted to utilize that here I think that could work great. Whether it's another member of Birnam Wood, witnessing what's going down among these three from the outside, or a journalist trying to do a piece on Lemoine, or, after the events at the end of the novel, an online community or forum or some redditors trying to figure out what the hell went down. 

Speaking of the ending, and spoilers herein, if you wanted to go AU with that and try something else on for size that isn't "rocks fall, everyone dies," I'm totally here for it. I do love that Catton really dug into the idea that we can never fully predict the awful ends that ambition will lead us to, and if that's something you want to riff on in a different direction, I'm totally here for it. I could absolutely envision some sort of Phantom Thread-style AU where rather than poison the entire commune, killing them all, either Shelley or Mira or both (together!) conspire to poison Lemoine, just enough; he needs to settle down a little. 

And if you wanted to go dark and strange (or find a way to push it into a goofy direction, by all means), Shelley and Mira decide to kidnap and try to ransom Lemoine? Or Lemoine abducts one or both of them? Get psychosexual, get weird; I'm your perfect audience for it! 







OVERTHINKING WITH KAT & JUNE
↳David; June




This was a fun, goofy, little show I stumbled sidelong into earlier this year. It's only six episodes (the first two are available for free on YouTube: 1, 2) that plays like a gender-swapped millennial take on Peep Show. And the subplot about June being awkwardly, hornily obsessed with her DILF-y widowed landlord? HELLO. All of which is to say: Happy Yuletide to me, let June fuck her DILF-y widowed landlord!!!

Something I really loved about this all-too-short series was how unfathomably, delightfully weird June was. She's anxious, she's awkward, she's incredibly particular and has no idea how to behave in social situations; I love her. And I loved even more her unhinged crush on David and that she had no idea what to do about it. I was a big fan of her awkward desperation and her attempts at flirting, and how Kat was always trying to teach June how to interact and flirt with men. Whether it's June's failure at negging or deliberately breaking things so David has to come out and fix them––if you want to play around with either or both, and maybe even David's reaction (or potential reciprocated interest), by all means. 

And if you want to go full-speed with the rom-com tropes and potential rom-com hijinks (fake dating! she's lied at work and convinced everyone she has a boyfriend and now she has to do something about it for the annual holiday party!; he winds up their temporary third roommate!; there's only one bed! idk where they are, but there's only one bed!; accidentally texting him a trying-to-be-sexy picture that was actually meant for Kat to judge!; anything else I'm definitely not thinking of!; another attempt at negging him results in a very stressful game of sex chicken!), please do. I think these two executing any of those tropes has the grand potential to be bizarre, and...bizarrely hot?  

Because let's be real: played by Justin Kirk, what's presented of David is his own capacity for weirdo behavior, and I find that endlessly appealing. So I invite you to lean hard into that––let him be weird and horny with June!

Basically, what I'm saying is this opens the door to an insane amount of weird sex to be potentially had between June and David. I leave the door wide open where "weird sex" is concerned, but feel free to make it awkward, make it bad, maybe make them get better at it (or not!), make it kinky if you want (uh, the bit where June can’t remember what Kat’s advice was and thinks it was to piss on him? I'm not not curious), make the dirty talk hilarious and terrible yet oddly hot! Let them both get off on being weirdos together! 

I'd also love fic about them going on a disastrous first date. Maybe June's trying too hard and/or, David equally a weirdo, especially about intimacy and dating, is trying too hard. Maybe the night only really works when they're alone in the car on the way home. Anything like that I would happily eat up! 

And, last, based on how the last episode ends, I would love fic where June goes on a deranged mission to earn David's forgiveness and get back in his good graces. Knowing June, I'm going to guess there is no low she won't grovel to lol. 

SUCCESSION (TV 2018) RPF
↳ Sarah Snook; Jeremy Strong




» SAG Panel during Season 2 (I think about these gifs CONSTANTLY)
» Entertainment Weekly photoshoot video
» Shaving Jeremy's head after the show wrapped
» Sarah on working with Jeremy
» Sarah on shooting that end boardroom scene
» Jeremy being very Jeremy (I love him)
» Behind-the-scenes photos (1, 2, 3) and Jesse Armstrong talking about the hug between Ken and Shiv in Season 2
» And some more photos that make my brain whir (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)


Look, am I still mourning the end of this show? Yes, yes, I absolutely am. Am I attempting to cope with that through the venue of RPF? Of course. 

I'll be honest, I will gobble any and everything up here. Needless to say, I do ship these two and if you do as well, please, go there. As a note, infidelity is a feature not a bug for me, but feel free to hand-wave any existing relationships. And feel free to include any other cast members or Succession crew, especially Kieran, in whatever capacity you might like. When it comes to RPF, I'm always fascinated by behind the scenes stuff, especially for shows I loved (and shows where the characters had great chemistry). They did a lot of travel for the show––England, Italy, Croatia, Norway––and if you want to lean into that, working away from home, hat they get up to when there's down time, pseudo-on holiday vibes, I'll love that. 

And speaking of pseudo-on holiday vibes, I am all for fic set during the end of the series (including the head-shaving mentioned above after their final scene), but also the Roy siblings decamping to Barbados to shoot the end of the series and the whole "meal fit for a king" segment. I have been obsessed since I read an interview Sarah did about the scene and her spit-filled shake––"He drank it every time, because he is Jeremy." And they did at least eight takes!

I also love RPF for some good awards season fic (please!). Or, promoting the show! Any sort of public event, red carpet (this gif lives rent-free in my head). The quiet spells between seasons—what’s that look like?

I would absolutely love fic about how they first met and first got started on the show. I love this bit from this interview where Sarah talks about how she had to do her final audition opposite Jeremy and was so intimidated. (Also, from that same interview, as intractably Kendall Roy as he is in my mind, I am endlessly fascinated by the road not taken, Jeremy playing the part of Roman, the "bon vivant prick" by his definition, and if you want to jump down the rabbit hole with that one, by all means, please do).

Also, sort of tied to that, character bleed is one of my absolute favorite things to play around with and is probably the root of my perpetual interest in RPF. Any which way you might want to play with that, art and real life losing its fine divide, character influencing the person, the person influencing the character, the heady mess that results when the director calls cut: I love it. I especially think someone who's process has become very publicized like Jeremy, whether he's technically method or not, I think it becomes that much more interesting to play around with. 

I am always a fan of epistolary fic, especially for RPF. Exchanged email, texts, transcripts of voicemails, video chats, transcripts of videos sent to each other, descriptions of photos, selfies, all sorts of found footage-y material sent and received over the course of working together––I love it. And, one of my other favorite tropes is the uh-oh this was meant to be casual but now Feelings™ are involved––however that might manifest. 

And, last, maybe they do another project together! Both of them are set to do theatre in the next few months, and if you wanted to place them together in a play, make them work together again, unspool what that reunion might look like, I would absolutely love that.