Yuletide 2021 Letter

[corvusumbranox]

Yuletide 2021 Letter

AO3 Username: StopTalkingAtMe

Welcome to my letter, Dear Yuletide Creator. Let me start by saying I’m open to a LOT of different things, from PWP, to utterly indulgent tropey shipfic, to casefic, to introspective character studies, to horror of all kinds, to heavy angst and bad endings. I also love crossovers (the weirder the better, although I prefer crack played straight), so as long as you have good reason to believe I’m into a fandom, then go for it.

Some of the sections here may be longer than others but please don’t read anything into that – I’d be delighted with a gift for any one of them. And while some of my requested fandoms are pretty long-running, I've tried to include suggestions for how to write for them after only having seen a limited number of episodes.

Table of Contents

• General Likes
• Art Likes
• Smut Likes
• DNWs
• Bergerac
• Britannia
• The Detectives
• Survivors

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, whether in horror or murder mustery. Think And Then There Were None.
• Case-fic, whether fully realised or just touching on elements from a case.
• Whump, hurt/comfort and hurt/no comfort.
• Endings of all kinds, happy, bleak or bittersweet.
• Canon-divergent AUs, especially post-canon ones where the bad guys win.
• Pining of all kinds, including both one-sided and mutual pining,
• Descriptions of scars
• Main Character Death and grief.
• Crossovers, especially oddball crossovers that come completely out of left field, although I do tend to prefer crack played straight rather than outright crack. If you have reason to believe I know and like the other fandom, then I encourage you to go for it.
• Post-Apocalypse scenarios, with focus on angst and the struggle for survival. This includes zombie apocalypse AUs.
• Stranded Together With No Way Home, us against the world, deep mutual dependence on the other party because there’s no one else around (which may not be entirely healthy)
• Time Loops
• Older characters finding love.
• Age gap relationships
• Smartly dressed men less smartly dressed at the end of a long and trying day: undone top buttons, ties hanging loose, sleeves rolled up, etc

Smut Likes

• Sex Pollen and aftermath, and any other kind of something made them do it scenario
• Angry Sex, rough sex, hate sex, rough sex that turns tender
• Clothed Sex, or clothed/naked
• Comfort Sex
• Dubcon when requested (mutual dubcon of the something-made-us-do-it kind is ALWAYS okay even when not explicitly requested)
• Mild bondage and other forms of gentle restraint
• Oral Sex, especially cunnilingus in all its forms, and ESPECIALLY cunnilingus with fingering
• Rough Sex - Lots of Scratching and Biting and Hair-Grabbing/Pulling and Holding Partner(s) Down
• Sex in grimy, grim, uncomfortable places
• Threesomes

General Art Likes

In terms of artwork I'm open to a lot of different things. I'd love to see something which captures the atmosphere of canon, whether that be beautiful scenery, or something grim and gritty. All the fandoms I’m requesting for this exchange are ones where I love the visuals of the setting and the world. I love contrast and lots of rich intricate detail, whether in colour, or intricate detailed monochrome line art but I also love softer, more muted colours if that's your style. I also quite like diptychs and triptychs, as well as the use of stylised borders which incorporate themes and objects from canon, such as clockwork, books, or vines. Artist-wise, I'm particularly fond of art nouveau, but seriously, anything.

DNWs

• A/B/O
• Noncon
• Dubcon involving unaroused characters
• Incest
• 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)

Britannia

Requested Characters: Any (Aulus Plautius, Lucius, Cait, Antedia)

DNW note: Please note that my Underage DNW doesn’t apply to Cait for fics set during and after the events of season 3.

If you want to write about Drella & Hella and explore whatever the hell their deal is, then I’d love to see that and it’s fine not to include any of the nominated characters. I have no idea if they really are sisters, but consider my incest DNW waived for them anyway, just in case you want to ship them.

~~

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. I love it so much. For a start, it's gorgeous. I love the visuals, the scenery porn, the ambiguous supernatural themes and how they very gradually get less ambiguous over the course of the show, the weirdly janky but sort of perfect way the music in the opening credits fits with the tone, the creepy fucking visuals, and the way it veers between genres and manages to catch me completely by surprise. There isn't a single character or aspect of the show which I wouldn't love to see explored in more detail. 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.

One of my favourite things about this series is how hard it is to predict what's going to happen next, and I'd love to see all those branching potential plotlines explored. I absolutely 100% welcome canon divergence from any point. Only seen one season? Fantastic: show me where you think the show would have gone next.

Season three wasn’t perfect, but I was delighted with a huge chunk of it (Also I’m a little in love with Drella. :D). I love Cait so much, that combination of strength and vulnerability, and I cannot emphasise how hard I am here for her team-up with Antedia, whose return was one of the best fucking things. I was hoping for it, but I couldn’t have predicted how absolutely fucking amazing her return would be. And as for Cait, I loved finally seeing her starting to come into her own, no longer tolerating Divis’s forehead flicking, while still being in search for a mentor, and that mentor she settles on is Antedia of all people. Fuck, it couldn’t have been more perfect. I was a little bit eh on Rayne, but on the other hand I really did love that she brought him along on the quest purely because he looked fun. Give me anything from Cait’s life, from backstory from her childhood, to following on from the finale of the third season – I have my suspicions that the Spear will prove to be in Rome, but still have so many questions: how under Lokka’s control is she? What is her life in Rome like? (Also here for dubconny Aulus/Cait set after the season 3 finale)

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, especially given 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 and everything that happens over the course of the show and his guilt and search for redemption. Show me something from after he deserts, part of his struggle to come to terms with all the terrible things he’s done… Anything.

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? I loved the brutal way season 3 elaborated on his son and his marriage to Hemple, and those painful conversations between him and his son.

If you want to write about Aulus and Lucius, I'd love to see their relationship and their shared history explored. We get some hints of the campaigns they've fought together in the past (that story about their time in Egypt *shiver*). It’s 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 happens of his own volition. (I also ship them, so if you want to go there, then please do :D).

I also ship Lucius/Antedia pretty damn hard, and have done right from the moment she called him 'pretty boy'. And THEN they went and followed it up by making him kiss her feet, which was one of those shippy moments so exquisitely perfect I’m a little giddy just at the thought of it. :D 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 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 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

• Alternate Universe - Bad Guys Win - One thing I love about this series is how completely it's left me guessing. What exactly is Aulus's plan? What would a world where he's won look like and how do the other characters fit into that world? Is there any humanity left in Aulus? Show me Lucius and/or Divis failing Cait, or confronting Aulus in a hopeless last stand.
• Anything exploring the relationship between Aulus and Lucius, whether you treat it as gen or something more. Explore that weird place between betrayal and loyalty. I'm especially fascinated by the way the show treats free will. It often isn't clear whether characters are acting under their own volition, and this is especially true of Lucius towards the end of the first season. Does he consider going back? Does he come into contact with the druids? Perhaps he comes down with a fever. Is Aulus fucking with him (or just fucking him) through his dreams or is he just dreaming? Is there part of him that desperately wants to go back?
• Explore the backstory and shared history between Aulus and Lucius. When did they first meet? What was the outcome of what happened at Golgotha, or on any number of the campaigns they’ve fought together, whether it’s set in the past or Lucius being tormented by memories/hallucinations of everything he’s done.
• And speaking of everything Lucius has done, was it in service for Rome or in service for Aulus? Explore his motivations for the betrayal, because that fascinates me. To what extent was he influenced by the druids and/or Aulus? Was there a moment when he realised that every terrible thing he’d done in Rome’s name had really been for Aulus, and to what extent was he aware of that while he was doing it?
• I ship Lucius with Queen Antedia pretty damn hard and did right from the moment she called him Pretty Boy (and I am DELIGHTED by everything that happens with her in season 3). So that. Give me some femdommy smut, or something more serious where he winds up at her camp after his desertion. Does he try to tell her not to trust Aulus?
• How differently would events in season 3 have gone if Lucius hadn’t been almost immediately captured by the Romans after meeting up again with Cait and Antedia? I would have loved for him to have got a bit more screentime with both of them, so give me that, or alternatively give me AU futurefic speculating on how things could have gone. I’m pretty sure the Spear is in Rome, for example, so how do they get to Rome if things go differently?
• Explore Divis and his crush on Cait, preferably during season 3. Perhaps he gets trapped in a time loop where he’s trying to fight the inevitable moment of his ‘betrayal’, but it keeps happening over and over again in various forms.
• Give me (AU) Futurefic – Cate/Lucius or Cait/Divis or Cait/Lucius/Divis or Divis/Lucius, and also the gen versions of all of those ships. I almost always love the dynamic of a young woman ending up in a relationship with a semi-guardian once she’s an adult and that hits that for me. I would also have loved to have seen how the dynamic between Divis and Lucius would have worked out, and how they’d have navigated their individual relationships with Cait and with each other.
• A fic following Cait’s Romanisation at the end of season 3. A sense of creeping horror and memory fuckery is particularly welcome here, and I’m open to Aulus/Cait. Does she gradually begin to realise something’s wrong? Develop a friendship with Aulus’s son?

Bergerac

Requested Characters: Jim Bergerac, Barney Crozier

Fandom-specific DNWs – The requested characters cheating on their wives/girlfriends/each other. (For Barney Crozier, an AU where he’s divorced/separated/never married and Alice Crozier is barely mentioned would work.) References to the canonical one-night stand between Jim and Philippa Vale are fine though.

- Jim Bergerac being abusive. (I don’t mind a realistic portrayal of his flaws, particularly if the focus is on the time when he’s still drinking, but please no deliberate abusive behaviour or violence, although him being rougher than he realises when he’s drinking, even to the point of accidentally causing bruises, is okay. If you’re not sure where the line lies, then please err on the side of assuming it’s fine.)

If writing Barney/Alice, it's fine not to include or even mention Jim in the fic

Currently the entire series is available through streaming on UK BritBox, and AFAIK at least the first couple of seasons are available on other versions of BritBox. (And I'd definitely be interested in an exploration of the relationship between Jim and Barney in the early days of Jim's recovery and joining the Bureau). It's also an old series, so episodes may also be available on YouTube and Daily Motion. The first episode is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHWW92AbT1E&t=2s

Bergerac is a very long-running show, but if it helps at all, the character development runs at a glacial pace, so it should be more than possible to write for after only having seen a limited number of episodes, and I am fine with canon divergence from any point. I’ve included a non-exhaustive list of some of my favourite episodes at the end of this section, including the ones which strike me as most important to the relationship between Barney and Jim.

The simplest and the easiest thing to write after only having watched a handful of episodes, would be my Barney/Alice ship, since Alice Crozier only appears in 4 episodes. For that, the main ones to watch would be A Horse of a Different Colour and Tangoes in the Night, as well as Treasure Hunt (she doesn't appear in that, but it does have Barney sharing his terrible marriage advice with Jim, which is a huge part of why I find the ship appealing). And I especially welcome PWP and indulgent tropey shipfic for this particular ship.

~~

I am currently absolutely hooked on this series, which I've recently revisiting after having watched bits and pieces of it a long time ago. I love almost everything about it: the scenery and setting and the characters, but most of all the relationship between Jim and Barney, whether platonic or otherwise. It's all just so messy and complicated, and I would be absolutely delighted to see it explored.

I’ve requested Barney Crozier and Jim Bergerac and I’ll get to them in a minute, but I’m fond of basically everyone, with special mention for Charlie, Jim’s ex-father-in-law, always on the periphery of every single case the Bureau investigates, and constantly coming up in their enquiries, and I especially love how deeply shady all his business dealings are, yet always with a veneer of plausible deniability. His crush on Peggy is adorable, and I cannot emphasise enough how happy it makes me to see him interacting with Barney. It doesn’t happen that often, but it’s a delight every time they start bickering. Their argument on the radio show towards the end of Chrissie was a particular delight.

As for Jim and Barney, I have very gradually fallen for them bit by bit, and so slowly I didn’t realise how hard I’d fallen until it was too late. Jim is one of my favourite characters and there’s a lot to dig into here: he can be feckless and snarky, has a bit of a bitter streak, and isn’t always great at facing up to his responsibilities, but he mostly tries, despite how bleak and miserable his love-life gets. Case in point: almost everything that happened with Susan.

And then there’s Barney, whom I absolutely, unreservedly adore. He’s just the right balance of ‘a bit of a dick’ and ‘total sweetheart’, and I’m drawn to the contrast between him being on the face of it a very serious, strait-laced character but then having these adorably hapless goofy moments (His model aeroplanes! His (extremely dubious) advice to Jim on how to have a successful long-term marriage!), and then that’s contrasted again with the darker edge to his character in A Man of Sorrows (which is without question my favourite episode).

I’m also completely fascinated by his relationship with Jim. In the first episode, Barney’s only just been promoted to Inspector over Jim, and they’re both so bitter and shitty to each other and I just want to know why. Their relationship improves over the course of the series, but there’s always this odd mix of tension and friendship between them, as well as a great feeling of history between the characters that I really like, and I’d love to see their relationship explored in fic, especially as the series progresses and they both have to face up to the darker sides of being a copper.

If you’re interested in writing shipfic, Jim/Barney is my main ship for this fandom, and I’d also be delighted with Barney/Debbie Hungerford and Barney/Alice Crozier. For fics which are primarily gen or not focused on the ship, it’s fine for any of the canon relationships or flirtations to appear. I like all of Jim’s girlfriends, with a special soft spot for Frankie for calling him out on his shit. On the subject of Susan, I really like her, but she and Jim just seem to make each other mutually miserable, and I would be more than fine with an amicable breakup where they both agree it isn't working, because jfc, it really isn't working.

While I ship Jim/Barney pretty damn hard, I’d also love to read gen fic that focuses on their canon relationship, that’s mixture of semi-hostility and friendliness, trust and mistrust, and a fraught shared history which is alluded to every now and then, usually in relation to Jim’s drinking and the sense that Bergerac is a little resentful of Barney getting promoted above him. I’m also a little bit in love with Barney’s occasional goofiness and particular brand of gloomy pessimism (usually in relation to the Jersey police being a laughing stock), and I just really love the contrast between them and the way they figure out a way of working together, even if there’s a little friction at times. And the trust issues: it kills me how ready Barney is to believe that Jim’s started drinking again in Ninety Per Cent Proof, and then at the end of the episode he tries to make up for it by turning a blind eye to Jim kicking the shit out of the man who framed him. Ultimately they’ve (mostly) got each other’s back and all the resentment and trust issues just makes me ship it harder.

For Barney/Debbie, I’m drawn to the headcanon of them being the two people (other than Kim) most hurt by Jim’s drinking, and I would absolutely love for them to be shipped, drawn together by all the shit going on with Jim. It’s up to you how you deal with it. My Cheating DNW absolutely does not apply to these two, and I’d especially love to see something fraught and guilty, whether it starts as an affair while Jim and Debbie are still married or if they only get together after the divorce.

For Barney/Alice Crozier… Well, let’s just say I wasn’t altogether convinced that the secret to a happy marriage is dragging your wife along to watch you fly model aeroplanes, and following that with everything that happens between them in A Horse of a Different Colour, it seems I was right. XD But… she still goes with him, even though she’s clearly bored shitless and the weather is miserable. That is a woman who must really love her husband. I find the few brief glimpses we get into their relationship utterly charming, and I'd love to see their relationship explored in a bit more detail. For this, I’d love to see something sweet, maybe an exploration of two long-term married middle-aged people trying to reconnect with each other. Does she ever wish he was more like Jim? Does she take up a hobby of her own and drag him along to that in retribution for all those afternoons with the model planes? Does she toy with the idea of an affair, or think about divorcing him? I’m normally all over heavy angst and am usually open to bad endings, but if there’s going to be a focus on this ship, I would really prefer there to be a happy ending (for the ship, anyway. The rest of the fic can be as bleak and depressing as you like).

And while I can think of quite a few men to whom my ‘Smartly dressed men less smartly dressed at the end of a long and trying day’ like applies, I’ve added it specifically with Barney in mind, especially after he gets promoted to chief inspector and he kicks his wardrobe up a couple of notches. Those three piece suits hit my id hard, and canon is pretty good to me in that regard. Oh, and if you at all feel like getting them both into wetsuits again then please do.

See You in Moscow, Late for a Funeral, Ninety Per Cent Proof, Chrissie, Root and Branch, A Horse of a Different Colour, A Man of Sorrows, Tangoes in the Night, The Other Woman, and A True Detective are some of my favourite episodes, and the ones which particularly focus on the two of them.

Optional Prompts

• The set-up in The Deadly Virus is actually the set-up for a 28-Days-Later zombie apocalypse scenario. Does it spread across the rest of the world, or is it quarantined and confined to Jersey? Go with whatever tone you want here, from angst and horror, to something more light-hearted along the lines of iZombie, looking at how the Jersey residents adapt to zombies. Zombieism as a fast track to a Jersey resident’s permit?
• Jim has the dubious habit of letting his girlfriends find him places to live. Instead of shacking up with Francine or Susan, he accepts Barney’s offer of a place to stay instead.
• I headcanon Barney and Debbie being two of the people most hurt by Jim’s drinking, and I really love the idea of them being drawn together as a result of that. I’d love to see something fraught and angsty, with a happy ending or otherwise. Is it a consummated affair or just an awful lot of mutual pining and UST?
• Secret Relationship Barney and Debbie get together but have to sneak around because they don’t want Jim to find out, but that proves harder than anticipated when they keep running into Charlie bloody Hungerford at every turn. Take this however you want, from angst to something sweeter to borderline farce. Maybe they go away and check in as Mr & Mrs Smith in a hotel in Guernsey, but Charlie sees Barney there, jumps to the assumption that he’s having an affair with a married woman, and goes on to gossip about it, or even try his hand at a little gentle manipulation over island politics.
• Or Barney/Debbie and a not-so-secret relationship. Barney and Debbie get engaged. Because on the one side: *heart eyes*, but on the other hand, it has such a wonderful potential for awkwardness. Like Barney becoming Kim's step-father. Not to mention Charlie's reaction to the prospect of a second copper for a son-in-law, and one who’s not nearly as understanding as Jim.
• The continuing attempts of Alice and Barney to find a hobby that they can both enjoy. Model aeroplanes bore her shitless; he takes the tango far too seriously. Maybe a murder mystery weekend but it turns into a busman's holiday when someone actually gets murdered? Or maybe things keep going wrong -- floods, power cuts, etc -- they think it's going to be a disaster and potentially end their marriage, but then in the end they just stay in the hotel room and reconnect through frantic boning instead.
• Give me the aftermath of A Man of Sorrows, because it’s one of my favourite episodes and the possibilities for angst are endless, starting with Barney’s potential PTSD from the events in the opening of the episode. I’d really love to see something digging into the bleak realities of that kind of policing, the repercussions of what happened to Hallowes, the fundamental differences between the kind of police officers Barney and Jim are, want to be, or are willing to be, or looking at some of the fallout between them and how it affects them in the aftermath.
• Or the aftermath of A Man of Sorrows again, but with the focus on Barney/Alice going heavy on the emotional hurt/comfort.
• Or the aftermath of Ninety Percent Proof, which is such a brutal, angst episode to watch (and one of the ones which makes me love Debbie all the more). Go with gen, or focus on either Jim/Barney or Barney/Debbie, with this possibly being the catalyst to finally get them together.
• For some reason, Barney and Jim roleswap, leading to Jim trying to do the case by the book while for once Barney is the one going rogue, such as an AU version of the episode Root and Branch where it’s Barney’s family being targeted rather than Jim’s?
• A supernatural casefic. I really love atmospheric M R Jamesian ghost stories, and I really like the spookier episodes, so I’d be delighted with anything along those lines.
• Midsomer Murders crossover – Barney and Jim attend a training course held in one of the Midsomer villages, which goes about as well as can be expected Casefic, crossover weirdness, or pure tropey ‘there was only one bed’ shipfic are all welcome here. (actually, that last one would work for a fic that isn’t a crossover too).
• Barney and Jim find themselves stranded on a tiny islet and have to fend for themselves overnight while waiting to be rescued. (In the middle of a storm? A deserted and possibly haunted hotel? With a killer possibly loose on the island?)
• If all else fails, just give me Barney, Charlie and Jim bickering with each other, and I will be delighted.
• What the hell was going on with Barney and Susan in the episode The Other Woman while he was interviewing her? Granted, she was never going to be happy about being suspected of murder, but her attitude towards him really felt personal and like there was something more going on, and that he might have a reason for wanting to find her guilty. Like, oh I don't know, her suspecting that Barney's secretly in love with Jim? (Again, Jim and Susan mutually agreeing it isn't working between them and ending it over the course of the fic is fine.)

The Detectives

Requested Characters:
Dave Briggs, Bob Louis

Pure comfort TV, which I’ve secretly been wishing had fanfic for far too bloody long. For those who aren’t familiar with this series, it’s a comedy show from the 90s about two incompetent detectives, which I grew up watching, and continue to love because it still makes me laugh too fucking hard given how silly it can be. There’s every chance that’s a Pavlovian reaction, but frankly I don’t care, because I completely, unapologetically, unironically love this series. If anything, I actually sort of love it more these days, partly because I’ve got more familiar with the crime shows it’s referencing, and partly because this time round I’ve started to ship it.

Unfortunately, like a lot of 90s sitcoms, it can be a bit near the knuckle by today’s standards and their behaviour around women can occasionally be uncomfortable, with the worst examples being in season 4, especially the ending of The Wembley Stadium Mystery. I also recommend skipping the season 5 episode Curse of the Comanches completely.

If you’re curious, YouTube and Daily Motion have a selection of episodes available, and the original sketches that the show was based on are all on YouTube, although I do think the series is better, possibly because it works better as an episodic crime show, and they went a little harder on the spoofs and references to other crime shows -- the Bergerac crossover! The ‘what would Inspector Morse do’ bit in the first episode! The Rear Window spoof! Every time someone sarcastically refers to them as Starsky & Hutch or Bodie & Doyle! The first episode isn’t the best, although I still quite like it because I’m a sucker for Agatha Christie style stately home mysteries, but the second episode, Hostage, is one of my favourites.

Firstly, them. Briggs and Louis. Bob and Dave. <3 Their partnership is one of my favourite aspects of the show, and I love the way they, and their boss, Superintendant Cottam, are sort of like the distorted funhouse mirror version of Cowley-Bodie-Doyle. My favourite bits of the series are almost always down to the interplay between the three of them, their facial expressions and the way they interact, every time they childishly try to elbow each other out of the way to get through a door first, Dave’s delusion that he’s the suave sophisticated sexy one (I mean, compared to Bob, technically he is…), and, since I’m apparently still a sucker for loneliness even when it comes to shows that are basically absurd, the occasional flashes of vulnerability Dave shows.

I’m absolutely here for moments like Dave holding out in the face of torture when it’s actually Bob who’s suffering, and for canon-style dialogue between the two of them. They’re both so utterly, gloriously hopeless and I just really enjoy watching their dynamic, the way they bounce off each other, and the line between then being utterly incompetent, while still somehow managing to solve the crime. Even if sometimes it’s despite of, rather than because of, the two of them.

But also… it’s shippy. It’s so ridiculously shippy. How did I never notice how shippy it is? From the drunken love confession in Witness, everything that happened towards the end of Sparring Partners, to Dave finally, finally having the chance to have sex, only to drop everything because Bob’s in danger. Oh, and them eye-fucking each other not long after Dave sobbing over Bob’s body because he thinks he’s dead. They spend all their time together. They even go on holiday together, for god’s sake. They’re perfect for each other, and not just because it wouldn’t be fair to inflict them on anyone else.

I’d love to see case fic, whether fully realised or just snippets. Humour is especially welcome here. Canon can get pretty absurd, but my favourite moments are less the ott set-pieces, than the bits where they’re interacting and all the background stuff woven into the casefics themselves, like football quizzes and Subuteo tournaments. I’m open to crossovers anyway, but that goes double here, since it’s something the show does a couple of times and I love the idea of it being this sort of nexus point where all crime shows intersect. :D Go with another Bergerac crossover, or Midsomer Murders, or Murder, She Wrote, or Morse, or Jonathan Creek, or Clue (whether a direct crossover or fusion). Or The Professionals (which happens to be one of my current obsessions). And as for the tone, go with canon-style humour, tone it down a little, or alternatively go a bit more serious.

There are no overarching plotlines and character development is relatively thin on the ground, so it would be more than possible to write for having only seen a limited number of episodes, and the main shippy ones are Sparring Partners, DCs in Love, Thicker than Water, and The Great Escape.

Optional Prompts

• Closed Circle Mystery. God, the first episode with its spooky hotel, limited cast of murderers, and nods to Agatha Christie references. I am pretty much guaranteed to love closed circle mysteries,
• You know when shows do those two-handed episodes where it’s almost entirely just two characters talking (Like Marooned from Red Dwarf)? That, please. All those late-night conversations when they’re on surveillance detail or doing tedious drudge work or suffering in the aftermath of a messy works do, or just sitting in the pub, and talking about everything and nothing…
• There was only one bed. For whatever reason. Maybe there’s been a mix-up and there’s only one room left in the hotel/b&b, or because it’s an And Then There Were None situation and they’ve barricaded themselves in the same room until the morning. Go shippy or gen, plotty or combine it with the two-hander prompt and just have them trying to get through the night, bickering over which of them gets the bed and which one has to sleep in the chair, and late night conversations about nonsense.
• The first time they accidentally get off with each other it’s an alcohol-induced case of mistaken identity. The confusion of a work Christmas party, a dark room... It could have happened to anybody. Unfortunately, that doesn’t explain why it keeps happening.
• Crossover prompt – The Professionals. Briggs and Louis joined the force around 1970ish, so it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that their paths might have crossed with CI5 or with Doyle’s, while he was still a copper. And given the way their dynamic is semi-inspired by the Bodie & Doyle archetype, I’m just delighted at the thought of them actually meeting, whether it’s pre-canon for The Detectives or post-canon for The Professionals. A 5+1 fic where the focus is on Briggs and Louis as uniformed PCs who keep accidentally thwarting Bodie and Doyle (even if all the CI5 stuff only happens in the periphery)?

Survivors

Requested Characters: Any (Jenny Richards, Greg Preston, Abby Grant, Charles Vaughan)

Please note that there’s no need to include any of the nominated characters. I’m open to seeing any characters or aspects of the show explored (including some communities who could be written about after only having seen one or two episodes -- there's a list further down), including meta-style worldbuilding. And if you’re at all open to crossovers, then I would very probably be willing to sell my soul for a crossover with The Professionals. (If you’re at all interested in doing that, then please do whatever you need to do to get it done. If it helps, one of my prompts would be doable after only having seen a single more-or-less standalone episode of Survivors).

So far, in my quest for the grimmest piece of seventies British sci-fi, Survivors is winning hands down. XD It is incredibly bleak, and can be tough to watch, particularly these days with everything that’s going on with Covid, but personally I’ve actually found it quite comforting. YMMV, though, and I’m really not kidding: it is grim. Content warnings include pressure to have babies, bad things happening to children and animals, and the occasional threat of sexual violence (mostly low-level, but there's at least one death which is strongly implied to have to do with rape although it isn't clear what exactly took place). It looks like a lot of the episodes are currently available on YouTube, and the first episode is here.

There are a number of communities throughout the series who only appear in one or two episodes, and I would welcome a fic taking a closer look at any of them. These include (but are not limited to) Arthur Wormley's group (s1e2-3), the London group, (season 2, episodes 3-4), the group of kids (s3e2), Brod's group (s3e3), and the people in Scotland. (s3e12)

The three seasons all feel very different from each other, and I really enjoyed all three. The first season is probably the bleakest, with everyone struggling to find their feet in the direct aftermath of the plague, and the race to form communities with some groups making power grabs, while others struggle to get settled. My favourite thing about the first series is the core relationship between Abby, Jenny and Greg, and the way the group grows up around the three of them. I especially love the way the relationship between Jenny and Greg develops organically, partly out of attraction, partly as a kind of shield against the world. I’m very much drawn to relationships that form out of necessity but which gradually grow and deepen as time moves on, but that also applies to the way that arc comes to an end (about which: oh dear god), and to Jenny/Alec. I’m also open to Jenny/Charles, particularly set during the third season and before they run into Alec.

Season two is very different from the first season. It’s not quite as bleak, although believe me when I say that’s not saying much, and there are still some pretty awful moments. I really love all the themes involved in season two, all the philosophising chat about planning for short-term survival vs planning for the long-term future, all the competence porn, and the fact that much of season two is basically a very polite cock-measuring contest between Charles and Greg.

My favourite thing about season three, apart from Jenny finally getting to do some interesting things again, was the heading out on the road again and seeing all the different communities starting to rebuild beyond simple subsistence farming. All the trying to put civilisation back together again and building links between communities on both a small and a larger scale.

I really like how the show deals with trauma and grief, and the way it has to be set aside while people are trying to get on with life, and how relatively small the stakes are in some of the episodes. I also love the way it deals with the side characters like Mina and Vic (and the episode that closes out his arc involving Ann is one of the most astonishingly gripping things I have ever fucking seen, holy shit). I love all the philosophising, and the question about whether it’s better to plan for the future or to concentrate on survival in the here and now, and Charles, with his baby mania, and what that says about the way he’s grieving for everything he’s lost.

As someone who likes post-apocalyptic stuff in general (including zombies), I’m also fascinated by the way the show uses tropes and to what extent it’s inspired other post-apocalyptic media, particularly in Mad Dog (another potentially standalone episode, which is extremely gripping and which can be found here. Uh, content warning for a man dying of rabies. It’s that sort of show, I’m afraid.).

Optional Prompts

• A missing scene from Jenny and Greg’s relationship filling in the bits it didn’t show. Like in the episode Gone to the Angels, when it goes from Greg outright stating that they’re together to them being in bed together. What happened in the interim? He’s pretty obviously trying to protect her and it’s entirely understandable under the circumstances, but it does smack a bit of chauvinism and him riding rough-shod over her opinions. So what happened in between? Did they argue about it? Was she angry, annoyed, relieved?
• I don’t often request slice-of-life, but I’m requesting it here, whenever it’s set, whether during the early days or when they reach the Grange, or at Whitecross in series 2, or during series 3 and the long search for Greg. I love the way the group grows up around that little kernel of three, Abby, Jenny and Greg, and how they’re the heart of their community. So just that really, moments from their lives and just the general small scale practicalities of their lives, trying to get hold of farm animals, another dog to breed with Ben, looking after the kids...
• Worldbuilding – give snapshots of the end of the world from the beginning to the long-term future, showing how things evolve.
• I’d love to see something exploring the conflict and dilemma that arises towards the end of series 2 and onwards – the difficult choice between the long-shot attempt to re-establish civilisation and industry and returning to a semi-medieval way of life, after years of modern life, antibiotics, industrial farming, and contraception. And the series makes it explicit that there is a price to pay for that, given what happens to Dr Adams and his community. And it’s all very well for people in the Scottish Highlands, but if some of them have never come into contact with with original virus, then are they still at risk of it?
• Understandably, we never see anything of Greg’s trip to Norway, since that’s clearly asking too much of a BBC 1970s sci-fi budget, but that’s something that can be remedied in fic. What happened in the six months he and the others were away?
• Something along the lines of the Canterbury Tales. Season 3 seems like a good point to set it, but any other point in canon would do. A group of people gather together somewhere to shelter and share their stories about the Death.
• Mad Dog made me want the zombie-apocalypse AU.
• And speaking of Mad Dog, give me something similarly tense and gripping with any of the characters (or OCs) and I will be beyond delighted.
• What happened to Abby? We get a few mentions of her after the first season but never anything concrete, so I'd love to see something following her after she leaves to find her son. Bring her into the events of the third season.
• Something bittersweet and sad following Jenny and Alec after the final episode.
• Futurefic with John, Lizzy and Paul as older teenagers/adults. How does the next generation to the new world, especially kids like Paul who've never known anything else. How do they grow up thinking about Greg, who by this point might have taken on an almost mythical status?
• Crossover with The Professionals. In the S3 episode A Little Learning we meed a Lord of the Flies-esque settlement of children, run by a tough-as-nails kid from Glasgow, who is basically a Cowley-in-training: ruthless, devious and doing whatever he needs to do to keep his group together, even though he’s completely out of his depth and horribly vulnerable due to, you know, being all of about 13 years old. I just want the real Cowley to take him under his wing. The episode should work as a standalone, and it can be found here. (Content warning: it involves the death of children, and mentions of child exploitation and abuse). Seriously, though, if you're willing to do a Survivors/The Professionals crossover then give me anything, although I warn you there's a good chance I'll claw your hand off. :D Maybe Greg and Macklin keep being mistaken for each other?
• I have no idea how it would work, but the swarms of rats in the Lights of London two-parter made me want a Dishonored fusion.

Thanks for reading!

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

It’s not quite as bleak, although believe me when I say that’s not saying much,

As someone else who's watched and enjoyed(??) Survivors, this made me do a literal LOL.

(I've watched enough 1970s Brit TV at this point that I'm not even sure Survivors is by any eans the bleakest. And yet it is somehow comforting! We can stoically deal with anything unless we can't and we die? Oh, well, have a cup of tea. Unless you're in a canon where you can't get tea. Like Survivors and WWII things. No wonder they're the most bleak.)

OMG, though, yes, some of those episodes are amazingly gripping and go places the 2008 version (which I saw first) frustratingly wimped out on before it even started.