Fandom 5K

[corvusumbranox]

Fandom 5K 2021 Letter

AO3 Username: StopTalkingAtMe

Welcome to my Fandom 5K letter, Dear Author. This is fast shaping up to be one of my favourite exchanges, I've had a fantastic time every time I've done it, and I'm so excited it's that time of year again. Some of my requests might seem a little longer than others, but please don't read anything into that: I would be thrilled to receive any one of these fandoms and ships.

Table of Contents

• General Preferences
  
  • General Likes
  • Smut Likes
  • DNWs
• Barbarians
• Britannia
• Dishonored
• Doctor Who (1963)
• The Last Days of Pompeii (1984)

General Likes and DNWs

General Likes

• Character studies and introspection
• Loneliness and isolation
• Angst
• Atmospheric description, scenery porn, sensory description
• World-building, backstory, and character development.
• Horror.
• Closed Circle - Stranded with a murderer in your midst
• Case-fic.
• Whump
• Endings of all kinds, happy, bleak or bittersweet.
• Canon-divergent AUs, especially post-canon ones where the bad guys win.
• Pining
• Descriptions of scars
• Main Character Death and grief.
• Crossovers (If you have reason to believe I know and like the other fandom, go for it).
• Dimension Travel
• Mirror Universe
• Post-Apocalypse
• Stranded Together With No Way Home
• Time Loops
• Indulgent levels of historical detail, although please note that I am in no way an expert, and I'm just as happy for historical accuracy to be thrown out the window.

Smut Likes

• Sex Pollen and aftermath
• Aliens Made Them Do It
• Angry Sex
• Careful Sex with an Injured Partner
• Clothed Sex
• Comfort Sex
• Cunnilingus, especially with fingering, and Cunnilingus while the receiver is masturbating at the same time.
• Dubcon when requested (mutual dubcon of the something-made-us-do-it kind is ALWAYS okay even when not explicitly requested)
• Foreplay - Kissing down partner's spine as you slide down/unzip their top
• Hate Sex - Characters having hate sex gradually catch feelings
• Kisses pressed against the back of the neck and/or along bare/mostly-bare shoulders
• Mild bondage and other forms of gentle restraint
• Morning after (amazing sex the night before)
• Oral Sex
• Rough Sex - Lots of Scratching and Biting and Hair-Grabbing/Pulling and Holding Partner(s) Down
• Sex in grimy, grim, uncomfortable places
• Sex - Loving Soft Gentle Submission to Inexperienced Character
• Sex - Touch-Starved Character So Overwhelmed They Don't Know What to Do With Themselves
• Sex Pollen - Both/All Affected
• Threesomes

DNWs

• A/B/O
• Noncon (Unless requested. Extremely dubious dubcon is also fine if prompted)
• Deliberate underage grooming (In other words, please don't have an older character deliberately manipulating an under-18 into a relationship. other forms of manipulation are fine though).
• Dubcon involving unaroused characters
• Incest (unless requested)
• Bestiality (monsters don't count here)
• Scat and waterplay
• Formalised D/s dynamics (bondage and other forms of restraint are OK)
• Underage
• Het anal sex
• Breathplay (antagonistic choking is fine)
• Fisting
• Sexualised lactation
• Any variation of the word 'come' in a sexual context spelled as 'cum' (please use 'come', 'came', 'precome' etc)
• Infidelity (for Doctor Who only)

Barbarians

Requested ships: Arminius & Varus, Arminius/Thusnelda/Folkwin Wolfspeer
Requested genres:

God, this was so freaking good. So far it’s just a single 6-episode series (although there is officially another one in the works) about the clash between the Romans and Germanic tribes, leading up to the Battle of Teutoburg. And it’s fantastic. I watched it as a kind of counterpoint to Britannia (which is also excellent), but they're so different they're like night and day. This is vastly more realistic, and more tight focused on a smaller group of characters resulting in glorious levels of loyalty kink, betrayal, heartbreak and whump: it's so freaking good, and I am delighted it's getting a second series, because holy fucking shit, that ending.

And then there’s Arminius. Oh my god, Arminius. I love him so much, how torn he is between Rome and his former tribe, his heartbreak over realising how his adoptive Roman father ultimately just thinks of him as a barbarian rather than a true Roman, the whump, oh god the whump, and the loyalty kink between him and his childhood friends.

I am absolutely here for any exploration of Arminius's struggles of being caught between two worlds, angst, loyalty kink, whump and hurt/comfort, smut, character studies, and canon-divergent fics (and ignore history as well if you want, XD).

Watching the two shows together, it's fascinating how different this is to Britannia while having a similar theme: this is so much more realistic, with very little hint of real magic although there are occasional ambiguous hints of it (which is one of my favourite ever tropes). Keep it realistic, or alternatively feel free to introduce some supernatural elements.

Arminius & Varus

Oh god. Oh god. Okay, the relationship between Arminius and his adoptive father was honest to god one of my favourite things about the series. It's so messed up and complicated, the layers of loyalty and betrayal, and the faith and love they both have in each other, and how they both ultimately betray each other, with Varus never truly seeing Arminius as a true Roman – and Arminius’s realisation that he can never truly transcend his origins as a barbarian in Varus's eyes and that's 'all' he's good for -- and yet at the same time Varus has the utmost faith in him, and they both genuinely love each other, and for it all to end like *that.*

And the scene in the tent where Arminius bluffs his way out of trouble, and all the childhood scenes of him growing up, and the contrast between Varus as a loving adoptive father and his utterly brutal treatment of the tribes.

I am so here for treatment of them both as complicated characters, Arminius in his Roman life, exploring his upbringing and beliefs, his life in the Legion, and everything he’s done in service to Rome, and the difficulties of being between two worlds.

Optional Prompts

• I'd love to see more scenes from Arminius's childhood, please, or his life and relationship with Varus before Varus because governor, and the gradual creep of him adjusting to a Roman way of life and starting to forget the way he was raised.
• A canon-divergent fic, exploring what would it have taken for Arminius to remain loyal to Varus and Rome rather than betraying them? What might have happened if Varus had decided to send him back to Rome after all?
• I'd love to see something from Varus's point-of-view, exploring his complicated relationship with his adoptive son. How did he come to raise Arminius? Has he any other children? Did he always intend to have Arminius appointed as the Reik of the Cherusci, or did he hope he might lead a normal life in Rome?
• Bring some supernatural elements into it, whether explicitly supernatural or more ambiguous (ambiguous supernatural themes which could have a completely rational explanation, and yet... are one of my favourite ever tropes). Post-canon, Arminius is haunted by the ghost of his father. Or fathers.

Arminius/Thusnelda/Folkwin Wolfspeer

One of my all-time favourite OT3s. I leave it entirely up to you how you want to deal with the ship, whether you want to have it v-shaped or as a triad, or just a pure smutty threesome, or alternatively if you just want to focus on one leg of the triad (I ship them together, and all three individual couples separately, so it's entirely your choice). I loved the way the show handled the shift in focus on the different relationships, with that starting point of the three of them before Arminius got taken by the Romans and swearing an oath to each other, and then the animosity between Folkwin and Arminius at the end, especially given the oath Folkwin swears and the ending of the series, which is SUCH an amazing set-up for the next. *heart eyes*

Again, I’m so here for the various levels of loyalty, sexual attraction, and animosity. Follow on from the ending of the first season, or go with a canon-divergent fic, or something set during canon, or a prequel set during their childhoods before Arminius was taken by the Romans. The actual shippiness can take a back seat if you want to concentrate on the gen relationship, particularly during their childhoods, although age-appropriate kissing, puppy love etc. is fine then too.

If I was disappointed in one thing it was the way the show lost its focus on the relationship between Folkwin and Arminius, which started off so gloriously loyal. Not that I didn't appreciate the shift into animosity (that PUNCH XD) and there were only 6 episodes so it didn't have a lot of space, and I loved the turn it took with Arminius and Thusnelda (my freaking heart), but I'd love to see Arminius’s relationship with Folkwin explored a bit more.

Optional Prompts

• Explore their childhoods before Arminius was taken away.
• Pure unadulterated smut. Whether a full-on threesome, or any of the individual pairings. I ship them all. :D And PWP is fine.
• Give me some more whump, please. Arminius shirtless having been beaten to shit was certainly a thing that happened, and I very much appreciated that it happened. Whump, or hurt/comfort following the end of the season. And Thusnelda's eye. <3<3<3
• Explore all the trust issues, Arminius's struggle to know where he belongs (and those scenes where he shaves himself and changes out of his Germanic clothes and back into his Roman armour were the hottest freaking thing).
• I'd love to see something that follows on from the ending. Can Arminius and Thusnelda win Folkwin around? And if they do, are their any lingering feelings of animosity? How is he (and Arminius for that matter) going to react when he finds out she's pregnant?
• What if Thusnelda's mutilation really did leave her with powers?

Britannia

(First a caveat that at the time of writing this, I've only just finished the first season which is going to make prompting a little tricky. I'm trying to binge it as quickly as I can which is no hardship because I love it so much, and I will definitely have finished the second season by reveals. In the meantime, apologies for the rubbishness of my prompts. Please assume this is a work in progress, and that I want *everything*. If canon turns out to conflict with one of my DNWs, then consider the DNW waived.)

Oh god oh god oh god. Right. Sometimes you just come across one of those shows that you absolutely love to bits, which are basically so perfect that they had to be made for you. For me, this is one of those shows. I love it. I love it so much that I'm actually flailing the tiniest little bit at how much I love it. It's so fucking good, omg, and yet I'd barely even heard of it until very recently. I started it knowing virtually nothing about it aside from having watched the trailer: I saw Zoe Wannamaker, Mackenzie Crook, and Julian Rhind-Tutt in the cast list and went in assuming it was going to be a comedy. Ahahaha, no. Although it has made me laugh pretty damn hard a couple of times. But yeah, no, not a comedy. Not in the slightest.

It's gorgeous. I love the visuals, the scenery porn, the ambiguous supernatural themes and how they veeeery gradually get less supernatural over the course of the first series, the weirdly janky but sort of perfect way the music in the opening credits fits with the tone, the creepy fucking visuals of the druids (and speaking of: I haven't requested them this time round, but goddamn do I love the druids in this. Mackenzie Crook is *fantastic* as Veran, and Willa is great too). And the way the Romans react to this vision of Britain too, as this eerie shifting landscape of ghosts and curses and magic. The characters: I love them all. I love everything about it. There isn't a single character or aspect of the show which I wouldn't love to see explored in more detail.

As always, I'd love to see character studies, scenery porn, elements of horror, creepy ambiguity, smut, complicated questions of loyalty and betrayal, canon-divergences, Bad Guys Win!AUs… Seriously, I want everything.

Aulus Plautius/Lucius

I mean, I knew right from the first moment that Aulus was going to be a favourite of mine because I am horribly predicable, but Lucius is fast becoming one of my favourites too. His relationship with Aulus, how long they've known and fought alongside each other, his gradual growing unease as he begins to realise something's not right with Aulus, how freaked out he is by the part he played in the prophecy, his unease with the druids, and the way things are going, and god, the moment when he decides to stop Aulus, which is the most brutal fucking thing. I'd love to see their past explored -- we get some hints of the campaigns they've fought together in the past (that story about their time in Egypt *shiver*).

And Aulus, Christ, Aulus. I'd love to see him explored. Is he inherently a demon, or is he like Divis in that he's just possessed and the real man is in there somewhere? How long has he been possessed, and at what point did the demon begin to take over? At what point does Lucius begin to realise something is wrong with him, or notice the change in him?

And just the way their relationship is presented in the first season show in general: the shared history, the loyalty kink, the fact that they're both ruthless, brutal men, who end up being changed by the place around them, and the question of how much of Lucius's behaviour towards the end of the series happens of his own volition. (which is possibly something that will be explored in season 2). If you'd rather treat this as gen and explore their relationship that way, then I'm fine with that.

Optional Prompts

Lucius/Queen Antedia

I shipped them right from the moment she called him 'pretty boy'. And THEN they went and followed it up by making him kiss her feet. :D

The scenes where Aulus and Lucius parley with her in the first series are some of my favourite moments in the show, mainly because she gives absolutely no shits and is utterly terrifying and badass, and because secretly not secretly I want her to dom the fuck out of him. The feet-kissing thing was the hottest fucking thing, made hotter by his oh-for-fuck's-sake attitude and the age gap, and Aulus being a dick, and also because she is amazing and I love her, and Lucius pretty obviously respects her at the very least.

The first moment they met, when he flees Aulus, where does he go? Maybe throughout that time skip in the first season, and maybe during that four months while she's got the citadel under siege, he's keeping her sweet, maintaining ties between the Romans and their allies, with Aulus using him as a go-between/messenger, because he knows Antedia likes him. Or after he's fled the Roman camp, maybe he goes there because he doesn't know where else to go, or is brought to her by some of her warriors. While Antedia seems not to know what's happened to him when she visits Aulus, I think it could fit that she's lying, which puts an interesting spin on what happens.

Optional Prompts

Aulus Plautius/Kerra

Daaaamn. :D I shipped them right from their very first meeting when he flirts with her (and possibly a little bit before that too), which made the bit when he parleys with Antedia and realises why they hate each other so much just the most glorious thing to watch XD. Every one of the scenes they share are scorching hot (yeah, even/especially the last one), and I love the antagonistic nature of their relationship. I've already touched on why I love Aulus so much, but god, Kerra is amazing too, and there's a lot to explore about her character in relation to Aulus, such as her bitterness over what happened to her mother, and whether any part of her is drawn to him because she's curious about her Roman heritage. Dubcon is fine for these two, which is probably just as well.

Optional Prompts

Request Four: Cait & Divis

God, I love Cait so much. She's hypnotic to watch and gives me strong Ciri from The Witcher vibes, and I LOVE her relationship with Divis, who is another favourite of mine and one of the best things in the series. Their scenes together -- that mix of dependence and not-quite-trust and antagonism, his terror of the thing living inside him and his knowledge of what's coming, him being a dick to her and her giving it right back. I absolutely love the way they handled Divis. It's with him that the supernatural elements first began to creep in, and seriously, if the whole thing was just him hypnotising Romans, I would probably still watch the hell out of that. :D  And Cait, her grief over the loss of her family, her lack of a name, and her self-doubt.

Optional Prompts

Dishonored

Requested ships: Corvo Attano/Teague Martin
Emily Kaldwin/Teague Martin
Requested genres:

~~

Corvo Attano/Teague Martin

I’m honestly a little baffled that this ship isn’t larger than it is, given all the whump potential of Corvo rescuing Martin from Holger Square. And yeah, okay, maybe it’s because Martin is a treacherous little weasel, but he’s a fascinating treacherous little weasel, and I ship them like burning. It hit me out of nowhere this ship, and I ship them all the harder for how hopeless and bleak and messed up it all is, with the betrayal and Corvo having been marked by the Outsider, not to mention his having just seen his lover murdered right in front of him. I just wish there was more fic for this pairing.

I'm enthralled by the Loyalists and everything that's going on behind the scenes with them while the events of the first game are taking place. But Martin especially: all that delicious angst and guilt as he struggles with his conscience and how he owes Corvo everything but still betrays him. His shady background is hinted at, but never really expanded on, and his true feelings about the Overseers is never quite made clear. Is he really a man of faith, or is it just a convenient route to power?

I’d be thrilled with anything that captures the awkward place between love/attraction, obligation and betrayal, or which tackles their awkward backstories and complicated emotions. Any level of relationship is welcome, from hateship, to using each other as a distraction, to one-sided pining, to genuine love and affection: mainly I’d be fascinated to see what you come up with for these two. Perhaps Martin's still recovering from his injuries, or Corvo's still mourning Jessamine, and trying to bury his grief in sex (whether meaningless or otherwise). Maybe they're trying to keep it quiet for whatever reason, or Martin is still struggling with the decision of whether or not he should turn against Corvo. Plotty canon-divergent fic is particularly welcome here.

Optional Prompts

• Post-canon ‘fix-it’ fic, although the actual fix-it part is entirely optional.
• A Bad Guys Win!AU. Corvo fails to stop the Loyalists but isn’t killed. Maybe he’s just injured or imprisoned, and resurfaces years later. Perhaps Martin regrets what happened and has done his best to make amends by serving Emily as best he can, and then he starts to hear rumours about an assassin who sounds very much like Corvo. Does he hole up somewhere or go looking for him?
• (Uh, also writing the above prompt has made me realise that I’d be open to a fic with the above set-up where Emily and Martin stumbled into a love affair once she was old enough, but they're both still hugely fucked up over Corvo (who could be alive or dead). Falling in love with her older protector/advisor was what her mother did, after all, and she thinks of Martin as one of her father's loyal supporters, and meanwhile Martin's basically obsessed with Corvo and Emily is almost a replacement for him.)
• Something set during the events of the first game. Corvo is still mourning Jessamine, Martin is still recovering from his injuries, and the whole situation is ripe for some gloriously angst iddy whump. Could be smut or emotional or physical hurt/comfort.
• The Outsider reaches out to Martin and offers him powers, perhaps the chance to go back and change events.
• Something set during the final mission of the first game: Emily is saved, the Loyalists are defeated, but Martin is still alive and Corvo has some loose ends to tie up.
• A canon-divergent AU where they’re discovered or betrayed and the Hound Pits Pub is overrun with the Lord Regent’s men and they have to scramble to survive whilst protecting Emily.

Emily Kaldwin/Teague Martin

I’d prefer that Emily be 18+ when the possibility of a sexual relationship occurs to Martin, although a crush on Emily’s part is fine before them.

This one is a little awkward due to my Underage DNW, which still stands, but I ship adult Emily/Teague Martin so freaking hard. It grew out of a prompt for the Corvo/Martin ship, but thinking about it and how it might work got me shipping it as its own separate thing. I would also be fine with it treated as entirely gen if you'd prefer to set it during the course of the first game - Martin fascinates me as a character and we don't really see him interacting with Emily.

But if you do decide to ship it, there's a very specific ship dynamic that I adore and which this hits for me: a man who acted as a semi-guardian to a younger woman, and the two of them just sort of accidentally falling into an awkward, guilty, somewhat angsty relationship once she's well past the age where she's old enough to be acting in an adult capacity. Seriously, it's like CATNIP, and that's part of what appeals to me about this ship.

I almost always adore older man/younger woman age gap ships anyway, particularly when the power balance isn’t always as clear-cut as it might seem. What I first imagined for this request is a canon divergent AU where Corvo died failing to stop the Loyalists and Martin finds himself as High Overseer and acting in an advisory role to Emily who remains unaware of the betrayal, while they conduct an affair. She’s still sort of messed up over the events of the first game, and, since Jessamine was probably about 12 when Corvo was appointed as her Royal Protector, she sees an affair with Martin as somehow following in the steps of her mother. Meanwhile Martin is conflicted about his betrayal of Corvo and guilty as fuck about having an affair with a woman he knew as a child. There’s so much potential for trauma, horribly conflicted loyalty kink, and guilty angst here, especially if you feel like combining the two ships with Martin having formerly been Corvo’s lover.

That really is a much more elaborate head-canon than I usually like to give, but it’s honestly just a suggestion, mainly because it seems the simplest way of getting them together. If you have another idea of how this could work (Outsider shenanigans or time travel or a Came Back Wrong fic – all of which I’d freaking love), then please do run with it. Martin can survive a high chaos run, so there’s every chance he could be imprisoned in Coldridge, and I would love to see how a High Chaos version of the first game would go on to affect Emily as an adult and how that might play into her relationship with Martin and her memories of her father.

I’m also fine with the ship taking a back-seat to the plot, and with one-sided pining or extremely awkward and badly timed UST.

Optional Prompts

• A canon-divergent AU where the Outsider pays Martin a visit shortly before his death and offers him the Mark. Maybe he goes back in time and it's him rather than Daud who winds up preventing Delilah from taking over Emily’s body, or Delilah succeeds in that, and years later, he has to restore Emily's spirit to her adult body, only she’s been a disembodied spirit growing up in the Void for all this time, touch-starved and desperate for human contact.
• Martin survives the events of the first game, but is imprisoned for his crimes, only to then become one of Emily’s few allies during the events of the second game (perhaps the Outsider chooses to mark him rather than Emily, and he sees a chance to make amends).
• The headcanon in the general notes about the ship. Maybe rumours start to surface about someone who looks very much like Corvo appearing in Dunwall, or the other surviving Loyalists are being killed off one by one. Or maybe Emily runs into Samuel and learns the truth about what happened to her father.
• Time-travel – as an adult, Emily travels back to the events of the first game. Maybe she takes over Corvo’s place in the missions, or sees a chance to put things right.

Doctor Who (1963)

Requested Ships: Jo Grant/The Third Doctor
Requested genres:

~~

Jo Grant/The Third Doctor

*On the subject of my infidelity DNW, if it comes to it (e.g. for anything more than unrequited or unrealised pining), then either disregard Clifford Jones or have them be separated UNLESS you choose to indulge my ridiculous 'Clifford Jones is actually the Doctor' headcanon, in which case anything goes.

”Jo, you've got all the time in the world, and all the space. I'm offering them to you.” *hearteyes*

I was already kind of shipping them because I am a sucker for hand-holding and they are always holding hands or hugging, but then I skipped ahead to The Green Death and oh my fucking god. I can’t see that speech at the beginning with the Doctor offering her the universe as anything but a love confession. It’s not just the words, but his delivery, which is ridiculously solemn given that he’s just giving her the choice of which shithole planet she wants to fail to get to. And she says no! And then the end of the story where he says goodbye to her and gives her the sapphire from Metebelis 3 as a wedding present (the way their hands touch!) and then she looks back at him as he slips out of the celebrations. Uh, which is to say that The Green Death got me from kind of shipping it to shipping it like burning.

Even if you set the ship aside, the Third Doctor and Jo are one of my favourite Doctor-Companion combinations. I absolutely fucking love the Pertwee years, and I love Jo so much: even back when Dr Who wasn’t on TV I had a battered novelisation of The Daemons that I read to death… (and rewatching it recently I’ve realised that may well be the source of my love for the trapped-in-a-creepy-village trope. The bit in Time Monster where the Master calls the Doctor's bluff and the Doctor can't bring himself to sacrifice Jo, so she makes the decision to sacrifice the both of them. <3<3<3 She’s tougher than she looks and she’s adaptable, but she’s still so vulnerable at times, and he’s so protective of her – all the putting his arm round her, and her flinging herself into his arms and being willing to sacrifice herself for him, him going in to kiss the top of her head… Yeah, I ship them hard.

Set it during canon or alternatively years late when Jo is older and wiser. I’m not really familiar with what the extended media has Jo doing after she leaves the show, so you’ve got an open book there as far as I’m concerned and I’m not bothered about spoilers for other media. Follow that canon or disregard it entirely: it’s up to you. The same goes for the fate of UNIT.

Regarding Clifford Jones, I happen to have a completely unsubstantiated headcanon that he's a previously unmet regeneration of the Doctor under the influence of the Chameleon Arch (perhaps one prior to Three who’s been forgotten about for some reason). It all kind of fits – his eccentricity, his name, his research being, according to the Doctor, remarkable for the age he lives in. Alternatively, I’m fine with him being ignored completely or for him and Jo to have gone on to divorce further down the line.

Optional Prompts

• Remember my headcanon about Clifford Jones? Well, after Jo’s marriage, the Doctor is distracted by inconvenient memories of her, memories which shouldn’t belong to him at all.
• Years after her marriage to Clifford breaks up, Jo finds herself meeting the Third Doctor again. A time paradox at Llanfairfach? The Master?
• Something ridiculously tropey – there’s only one bed, or they arrive on a planet where they’re forced to pose as husband and wife. Or, my favourite, trapped in a cupboard and hiding from monsters.
• Explore the shift in their relationship. Why did the Doctor go from not giving a damn about her flirtation with the Peladon to being so protective of her over Clifford?
• That speech the Doctor gave at the start of The Green Death: what would have happened if she’d agreed to go with him to Metebelis 3 (on the assumption that it would be a stop-off on the way to Llanfairfach).
• Undercover - Undercover as a Couple brings out Feelings - On arriving on a planet, the Doctor and Jo attempt to blend in (Curse of Peladon-style) by pretending to a pair of expected visiting government officials. Unfortunately, those government officials are actually husband and wife and events -- mysterious murders? -- mean they have to pretend to be married so as not to draw suspicion to themselves, and they find themselves enjoying the act. Or maybe they stage a breakup but the act of arguing actually draws them closer together.
• Oh No We Have to Get Married For .... Political Reasons Yeah That's It - Accidental marriage. <3<3<3 I have no idea how this could come about... maybe a planet where marriage is a requirement and so Jo insists on marrying the Doctor to save his life, and then it proves not to be quite so easy to annul as they'd anticipated.
• outsider pov - One of the things I really love about the Pertwee-era is how different the Doctor's manner was with Liz and Jo and it would be fantastic to see Jo's relationship with the Doctor explored through her bonding with Liz. Maybe it just started with Jo seeking out advice for how to work with the Doctor, and then it gradually becomes clear to Liz that Jo is falling in love with him.
• Slow Burn - Soulbonding is the only way for A to save seriously injured B's life - God, I love this concept so much. I could see this working with either character in the life-saving role. All the angst and guilt and anger, whether the anger is directed at the other character or that the other character had to be put in that position, or a messy mixture of both. <3
• Characters Stranded Without Any Other People For Decades - And another concept that's pure id. <3<3<3 Are they stranded for real, and is it permanent, or are they rescued at the end? And if/when Jo dies, will that mean the Doctor has to go on alone? Or, alternatively, is it an implanted memory situation or kind of simulation, with them living out the course of decades over a much shorter period of time, but it's no less real for that? Do they both live through it, or is it just one of them (Jo for preference if only one of them lives it.) (Struck through because I’m working on a version of this myself, but please don’t let that stop you from using this prompt if it appeals. I’d love to see your version.)

The Last Days of Pompeii – 1984 Miniseries

Requested Ships: Sporus/Lydon, Sporus/Lydon/Nydia, Melior/The unnamed barmaid Requested genres:

(Available on Youtube here: part one, part two, and part three.)

Basically my distilled pure id from start to finish. Hallucinatory dubcon threesome sex, rival gladiators, doomed lovers, and so many satisfying death scenes I’m shivering in delight at the thought of them. I enjoyed the book too, but found myself preferring a lot of the changes the miniseries made – many of the characters are significantly more likeable, and I was low-key invested in a *lot* of the canon ships and friendships. I also thoroughly appreciated that they decided to give the gladiators more of a role in the story, that they eased back on the ‘Ancient Greece is massively superior to Ancient Rome’ theme in the book, and added a couple of the characters who came to be favourites of mine (especially Chloe <3).

Go with a fix-it or take full advantage of my being fine with Major Character Death and wallow in the tragedy and grief. I’d particularly love to see the gladiatorial life explored a little, especially the various relationships between them all, and canon-divergent AUs are welcome, as are fix-its, whether they’re genuinely fixing things or otherwise. The only thing I would ask you to avoid, if you’re doing a canon-divergent fic, is an AU where Vesuvius doesn’t erupt because that's the whole freaking point. :D Aside from the requested ships, one of the things that appeals about canon is the web of interconnecting friendships (Lydon and Glaucus comparing wrestling styles XD) so I’d love to see that reflected too if you have a chance.

Sporus/Lydon, Sporus/Lydon/Nydia

Sporus is a fantastic character, a tightly knit bundle of resentment, envy, jealousy, and bitterness (I love how pissy he is at not being appreciated when Marcus snipes at him for killing his opponent in the arena). And the early scene after the first gladiator fight when he helps Lydon with his armour and tells him, utterly sincerely, to be careful. <3<3<3 And then later the scene where Lydon is training with Gar, and Sporus doesn’t know whether to be jealous of Gar or Nydia or of Lydon being champion. And his lines in his final scene, which led to a massive record scratch on my part: Lydon, I did love you. Not ‘Lydon, I loved you’ but ‘I DID love you.’ Implying… what? That the question of his feelings for Lydon had come up at some point in the past? Did they have a fling? Was Lydon in love with Sporus before Nydia? Did Sporus deny him? WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED? And Lydon holding his hand while he dies… goddamnit, my heart.

I would love backstory for this, or something set during canon. Canon-divergent AUs are always welcome, and I’d also be happy for any level of ship: from fully realised, to pining, whether mutual or one-sided. If you're not sure what to do with Nydia and don't want to write Sporus/Lydon/Nydia, I'm pretty invested in Nydia/Ione and Nydia/Glaucus/Ione.

And then there's Sporus/Lydon/Nydia, which I would particularly like to see as a triad although a v-shaped set-up where everyone is fine with the situation is okay (or a v-shaped set-up which gradually turns into a triad). If they all manage to make it out of Pompeii it would be a pretty fascinating dynamic, especially if Sporus feels himself dependent on Lydon due to his injuries. I'd be especially interested in seeing Sporus's relationship with Nydia developed.

Optional Prompts

• We know how and why Lydon came to be a gladiator and why he continues in that life despite having earned his freedom, but what about Sporus? Was he already there when Lydon turned up as a slave whom no one expected to last more than a couple of matches?
• Always here for descriptions of gladiator matches or sparring, the blood, the sweat, the sexual tension… Also helping each other with their armour, and tending to wounds afterwards. And, uh, bathhouses.
• And hey, if you just want to write PWP, sex in the wake of a match or sparring session wouldn’t go amiss.
• What happened when they all left Pompeii for Campania?
• A post-canon fix-it. Lydon escapes Pompeii with an injured Sporus. What does the aftermath look like? Bitter angst and hurt/comfort welcome here. Given what a massive jealous shit Sporus is in canon, I’d love to see that explored.
• Nydia understands something about being in love with someone you feel dependent on and the heartbreak of watching them love another. An understanding develops between her and Sporus.

Melior/The unnamed bar maid

In a show filled with likeable characters (even the ones who are massively flawed), Melior is the loveliest and I just want him to have nice things. Almost the first moment we see him in a gladiatorial fight, he’s persuading his opponent to put his hand up to beg for mercy so he can be spared, and later he protects Nydia from Gar. Which makes his fate and the fate of his canon love interest, the bar maid, all the more gutting. They get so few scenes and she gets no lines, but the brief attention they get is the rip-out-my-heart-and-stamp-on-it kind, and I will never not be a sucker for that. I was absolutely not prepared for that last shot of her towards the end, and as tiny as this ship is, it was cemented into my heart as something I desperately want. Also in that bar scene it’s pretty clear they’re holding hands, and that’s something I can never resist.

I would absolutely love a fix-it for this, whether a true fix-it or just a temporary one so that something even worse can happen. As for the bar maid, I’d love to see her given more agency - a name and some actual lines would be a start :D. (As an aside, if you happen to know the name of the actress who portrays her, I will love you for ever. I have a feeling she might be Italian, based on… absolutely nothing at all.) I’d also love to see something of how the gladiators fit into the world of Pompeii in general. The scene where the gladiators are returning from Campania, with Lydon pursued by adoring women (with Sporus looking pissy in the background XD) gets me curious about how she fell for Melior in the first place. Why him, when all the other women are flocking around Lydon? (aside from Melior clearly being so lovely).

Optional Prompts

• A ridiculously indulgent fix-it where they both survive Pompeii and settle down together (a bar? A farm? Kids running around), then meet up by chance with Lydon, and the other survivors (whether Nydia or Sporus) – the friendships are one of my favourite things about canon, so I’d just love to see them catching up with each other and reminiscing about old times. Happy to receive utterly plotless fluff for this one, or go hard on the PTSD and grief for the friends and family who didn’t make it.
• Smut – after he intervenes between Gar and Nydia, or just before they leave for Campania (or afterwards). Or maybe they’re fooling around, him playfully teaching her some fight moves and things develop from there.
• Hurt/comfort where Melior survives his wounds and returns to Pompeii. She comforts him. A happy ending, or:
• Melior survives the trip to Campania and returns to Pompeii and the bar maid… only so that they can both die together tragically when Vesuvius erupts. Yay? (Seriously, the multiple tragic deaths are one of my favourite aspects of the show so if you want to write something that’ll rip my heart out, please do).
• Backstory. How did she come to fall in love with Melior over all the other gladiators?

Thanks for reading!