Dear Yuletide Writer 2016

[minebyrights]

Happy Yuletide, dear writer! Whoever you are and whatever canon(s) brought you here, I hope you find this pleasing, rewarding, and low on stress.

The following, as tends to be my style, skirts the lines of TL;DR, but I want to emphasize up front that I am genuinely in love with all of these canons, as well as desperate for fic for them, so anything you produce that doesn't hit my squicks will be A++. Prompts are mostly me throwing wild ideas at the walls and seeing what sticks; if you have something roiling around in your brain you really want to write for these fandoms and characters, go for it! In general, all ratings from gen to depraved NC-17 porn are good, and all gender combos are fine. There may be slight variations in length between fandoms below, but that's mostly due to my writing this piecemeal over many days and not due to any difference in excitement or preference for certain fandoms!

If you want to stalk observe me in the wild, I'm:
theoldgods
theoldgods
minebyrights
minebyrights

And with that, on to the letter itself!

Likes and Dislikes | The Americans (TV 2013) | Carol (2015) | Kingsman (Movies) RPF | Mr. Robot (TV) | A Single Man (2009) | Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

LIKES AND DISLIKES

Likes: worldbuilding, Holmes/Watson dynamics, undercover work and casefic, bedsharing, huddling for warmth, fake relationships/fake married, bickering and bantering like old marrieds, clothing descriptions (especially period clothing, suits, kilts, tall boots), hands and feet, bathing and cleaning one another, adrenaline junkies and partners in crime, found families, snow/winter/autumn settings, 5+1s/vignettes with some thematic growth/resonance, daemons, clothed sex, frottage/intercrural/nonpenetrative sex, dubcon (sex pollen etc), light/casual BDSM (especially with subby men), topping from the bottom, oral sex, dirty talk, threesomes, masturbation, outdoor sex, voyeurism/exhibitionism. For more sex-specific stuff, see my Yuleporn post and my letter from Smut Swap 2016

Please no: first or second person POV, pregnancy/childfic, deathfic, angst without some light at the end of the tunnel, horror/gore, character bashing, AUs (except canon divergence, future fic, and daemon AUs), tentacles, body horror/extreme body modification, omegaverse, rape/noncon, bodily fluids/watersports, anything dealing with the sexual humiliation of women (even for kink) (exception to this is some femslash--see below where relevant)

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THE AMERICANS (TV 2013)
Elizabeth Jennings

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I love Elizabeth so much--her brutal ideological devotion to the Soviet Union/the idea of communism (and is it cracking at all?), her deadliness, and yet the honest love she's capable of feeling for Philip, Gregory, her children, her mother, etc. As a result I'd be happy with just about any fic centered on her and her life story, as long as it's not too unrelentingly grimdark: What was her life like before her father's death? What about snippets from her and her mother's relationship? What about her first days in the US with Philip? What about meeting Gregory? What about her meeting Arkady or Oleg or Nina somehow, even for a moment? Pretty much all ships, or none, and all ratings welcome, so long as it explores Elizabeth in some way.

What I Love: I love The Americans for so many reasons: the period piece setting, their flawless use of 70s and 80s music, the subtle pisstakes they do of Reagan, the gray morality/use of antiheros, the deliberate blurring of lines and parallels between Americans and Soviets (both legal and illegal) and their relationships with their governments, the action, the black humor, the absurd wigs and costuming. I also love basically all characters, so feel free to use them as you see fit to fill out Elizabeth's story; I'm especially fond of her and Philip and the desperate need they have for one another even when the love itself isn't there, her and Gregory and the wild ideological passion they shared, her and her mother (Elizabeth on her knees for her!!!!), and her and their handlers (especially Claudia, whom she reviles half the time and yet is drawn to, and Gabriel, especially her baring herself to him in s4). I also adore the Rezidentura group (especially Arkady/Nina/Oleg/Tatiana), so I'd love to see the illegal Soviets interact with the aboveboard Soviets, even if only for a minute. I also love Elizabeth in action, the question of her American family and children vs. her devotion to communism, those little moments of her coming close to or actually just breaking down and how she brutally picks herself up afterward, and wondering at how things were after their American arrival but before the series starts (was it less intense then, before Reagan?). A little bit of action and classic spy tropes? Some vignettes/5+1s tracking her relationship to something over the years? Honeypots? Go wild.

More Prompts/Ideas:

• What was Elizabeth and Philip's wedding night and/or earlier relationship like? Anything with them developing their relationship, either in one moment or across the years, would be great--it's okay, despite my general dislike of pregnancy/childfic mentioned above, to mention Paige and Henry and Elizabeth's canonical emotional confusion toward them (remember how she told Zhukov she was pregnant the second time before she told Philip? That's super interesting to me!), but please don't linger on that.
  
• How do Elizabeth's relationships with their various handlers differ? She is comfortable with Gabriel and was antagonistic toward Claudia, but how has that changed? Is Gabriel different toward them in S3/S4 compared to how he was precanon? Did Elizabeth's relationship with Claudia and the betrayal of trust that period involved change any of that/how she sees handlers and Moscow Centre in general? Does Elizabeth feel differently toward Gabriel after the glanders scare and his letting them "vacation" in S4?
  
• What would Elizabeth meeting Arkady/Nina/Oleg in the flesh look like? What if they met and didn't realize until afterward what had happened? How are the relationships between Directorate S agents and the Rezidentura in general? Elizabeth called that one time, but beyond that they don't really seem to have contact--would another emergency of some sort force it? Did they speak at all after the Martha shakedown in S4? I'm especially intrigued by the idea of a dangerous doesn't-officially-exist Directorate S agent meeting the Rezident himself.
  
• What was Elizabeth's relationship with her mother like through the years? We've seen bits of it, her mother's toughness and general unsentimentality, but more scenes are always welcome. When she gets the recording at the beginning of S3, is that the first time they've spoken since her departure, or have they communicated over the years? And how did her father fit into this before his untimely death?
  
• Elizabeth and Paige got to bond over beating people up in S4, even as Elizabeth (and Philip) are low-key running Paige into the ground by bringing her in on the double act. How does mother-daughter work after Paige learns the truth? Does Elizabeth provide those self-defense lessons? Does she tell Paige further stories of Russia?
  
• I really loved Young-hee in S4, and I felt so extremely bad for her (never knowing what would become of "Patty") and, yeah, bad for Elizabeth for having to do something she really, aggressively did not want to do there. I loved how you could tell that Elizabeth--Nadezhda--genuinely liked her as a person, not just within the Patty persona and how it got to tear Elizabeth up, emotionally, while also giving us such a good side character in Young-hee, how they could relate over being immigrants (even though only Elizabeth knew they were both immigrants). Any scenes of their evolving friendship and its duplicity would be fantastic, and if you want to Go There and have them make-out/fuck/whatever, I'm also completely on board.
  
• What does Elizabeth think of the sex work they must do? She canonically is abused by marks and takes it, to Philip's dawning horror, and she and Claudia speak of how things are harder for female agents in this respect, but I love honeypots as a trope and would love to see an exploration of it with regard to Elizabeth. Does she ever honeypot women? Does she ever feel sorry, even momentarily, for certain victims? How does it seep into her sex for pleasure with Philip or Gregory (or any others; I don't think I have any NOTPs for her)?

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CAROL (2015)Carol Aird (Carol (2015)), Therese Belivet (Carol (2015))

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I adore this movie so much, all the women in it and the ways they are drawn to one another despite the (mostly male) fuckery around them. I love queerness explored against less welcoming societies, particularly when the characters are nonetheless unabashed about their "deviance," and I love women claiming happiness for themselves in a society that expects that female happiness is to be found in their husbands. I love roadtripping, the aesthetic of the open road and the little pieces of 1950s daily life seen on screen, the sense of freedom only to come crashing back down, and then getting that freedom anyway by the end. I am pretty much game for most anything, be it exploring their pasts, how Carol and Therese act during their months apart, more roadtripping, more domestic moments, whatever.

What I Love: I love roadtripping. I love queerness contrasting with otherwise repressive community norms, especially when queerness gets to low-key win nonetheless, as it does here. I love the 1950s aesthetic in terms of fashion, the scenes with them playing with makeup, brushing hair, looking at one another in mirrors, sharing beds/rooms, trying perfumes, and so on, as well as the dingy motels and diners. I love winter and the winter setting for the film, how they're doing all this when most other people are with their families (and thus, of course, the idea that they are family together in some way even before they start actually having sex with one another). I love how Carol can be exes with Abby and yet they're still friends, they still need and trust and help each other, and so I wouldn't at all mind little hints of her or other women still around even if Carol/Therese is endgame. I love Carol choosing her happiness and sexuality and sense of self over Rindy, as much as it pains her. I love Therese getting to apparently "learn" from Carol, and all that the age gap can imply, but I also love little moments of turning that on its head, how Carol is needier at the end than Therese appears to be, so that despite the age gap, they both have something to offer the other at various times. I just really love it all. I've read the book, so if you want to throw in the occasional thing from there, feel free, though I do like how Therese is a little less infantilized by Carol in the movie.

More Prompts/Ideas:

• Roadtripping part two! An anniversary gift to themselves? Or snapshots from the roadtrip in the movie? Or them traveling Europe, as Therese was going to with Richard? Filthy things also always welcome in the backseats of cars/on ship decks/in showers in hotel rooms/etc if you're feeling porny.
  
• More of their art and Therese photographing Carol over the years? Does Carol have some sort of art/talent she does? Does she memorialize Therese somehow like how Therese memorializes Carol through the camera?
  
• What are they doing when they're apart in the film? How does Carol work through things to get to the point where she's willing to choose her sexuality over Rindy? How often does Therese think of Carol while she's working her way up at the Times?
  
• Does Therese have some experience in her life that Carol has never had? Does she teach Carol something, be it art/photography or something on the piano or something sexual that Carol hasn't yet tried? What would Carol submitting to Therese in some sort of light bondage/informal BDSM-y thing look like?
  
• Weird ways in which their lives/childhoods might have paralleled up until the point they met, despite the age difference and apparent class difference (in some ways)?
  

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KINGSMAN (MOVIES) RPF
Colin Firth (Kingsman (Movies) RPF), Mark Strong (Kingsman (Movies) RPF)

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I adore these two, their on-screen chemistry, their beauty, and all the potential their many years in the acting world has for competency kink and/or long-term casual relationships. And yet, despite their slow progress toward actually being an onscreen couple in some film some day, there's almost no fic at all for them in English (and I always need mooooaaaaaar). I would love any fic for them exploring their acting/them getting together/them fucking and/or being friends through the years/them blending their families/essentially anything at all. My only hard request is to either write in an AU where they're not married, to make them have happy, loving open/poly relationships with their current wives (my personal fave), or to make them amicably divorced; please no cheating/infidelity/bashing of the wives!

Primers: Actors Colin Firth (imdb|wiki) and Mark Strong (imdb|wiki) have been in four films together: Fever Pitch (1997), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Before I Go to Sleep (2014), and Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015) (a wide range that is well encapsulated in this gifset and this one). They are close age compatriots (Colin is 3 years older), both live in London with their fairly powerful/prominent wives (producers, filmmakers, activists), have children roughly the same ages, love Arsenal FC together, and have had connections throughout their careers (Mark claims Colin in 1982 inadvertently inspired him to become an actor). Besides the films mentioned above, you can see bits and pieces of their dynamic in the links I've compiled in this Google Doc (to save space). Their pairing name is "Firthstrong," though it's thin on the ground in Anglophone fandom (I've reblogged some to my tumblr tag). Their two most popular character pairings are Bill Haydon/Jim Prideaux ("haydeaux," from TTSS) and Harry Hart/Merlin ("merlahad," from Kingsman), and there are a number of random potential crossovers mentioned in the above Google Doc.

What I Love: I love these two together on screen, in all films where they share screen time, the indefinable chemistry they have that translates well from friends (Fever Pitch, Kingsman) to lovers (TTSS) to borderline enemies (Before I Go to Sleep); they are comfortable with one another, and it shows. (I eagerly await the day they are not only lovers on screen but actually physically get to act that, as this FFA thread encapsulates.) They are both skilled, consummate actors who have been around the block a long time by 2016; they both speak foreign languages near fluently (Colin speaks Italian thanks to his wife and bilingual children; Mark speaks German thanks to an Austrian grandmother; please imagine them talking dirty to one another in these languages!!) and have spent significant time abroad (Colin lives part of the year in Italy; Mark went to university in Germany for a while). I love how even in their separate films, quite a number line up in terms of time period/characterization, making potential crossovers and general AU aesthetic inspiration easy. They aesthetically are each perfect in my eyes, and thus perfect to imagine together, in a sort of "comfortable-pair-of-really-nice-shoes" way; it's easy for me to imagine them being friends or more over the years, in a not-exclusive but nonetheless potent and heartwarming way, yelling at Arsenal games, discussing their craft occasionally (although I don't know too much about the inner workings of Hollywood, I do find it really fascinating), and sharing their families' good will. Free/open relationships, and imagining their (gorgeous) wives also occasionally playing, is a huge bonus for me with them.

More Prompts/Ideas:

• What hijinks do they get up to as two of the older members of the Kingsman cast, with a bunch of young upstart noobs around them? Colin has offered Taron career advice; has Mark? Have they tag-teamed him? How about them on the set of the sequel? Is there (or was there during filming) a Colin-Mark-Taron group text chat? Give me all the "like a married couple" shit imaginable on set; bonus points for some annoying "dad" behavior with Taron, Sophie, etc. (This tweet pretty much encapsulates a lot of this bullet point for me.)
  
• Any situation with them planning/blocking out scenes where their characters are lovers (be it implicit like with TTSS chemistry or in some future film where their characters have a canonical kiss/sex scene, like the Kingsman sequel in my head that will totally reveal a twenty-year-old Harry/Merlin relationship). Method acting encouraged. Bits of meta-ness are okay, but please no scenes where they mention/explore fan territory (fic, vids, tumblr, etc); explicitly crossing the streams is a "no" for me.
  
• They have a casual sex relationship, no strings attached, either before they meet their wives or current day with their wives' blessing. Do they use it for stress relief? To sate desire for cock? Do they have certain relationship rituals they find themselves doing (consciously or not) each time they work on a film? (Fucking in a certain place, buying extravagant dinners to celebrate wrapping, etc.)
  
• They first meet (Fever Pitch era?) and don't really know each other, and yet they find themselves having weird anonymous sex with this other dude. Who turns out to be a coworker on that next project, oops. Cue awkwardness/working through it/hot casual sex in seedy establishments.
  
• They have open relationships with their wives (or crazy four-way poly relationships, whatever!), a fact that isn't widely known. They're generally circumspect with one another, yet someone (Taron? Sophie?) discovers them Getting Into It on the Kingsman set/in their trailers and freaks out a bit thinking they're witnessing infidelity. They convince the onlooker otherwise, using whatever means of persuasion you find most stimulating.
  
• AU without their current wives where they're in a relationship all along (since Fever Pitch or whenever you like) and become a low-key power couple in the British acting world.

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MR. ROBOT (TV)
Dominique DiPierro

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I just watched Mr. Robot in September, and I really enjoyed the blend of hacking/espionage/revolution drama with the rich characters involved. I love many of the characters, but I really enjoyed Dom coming into play in S2, her blend of world-weariness, kindness, curiosity, and tenacity, how she's FBI but how I can see her having some sympathies with fsociety, and I love her set-up for S3 with Darlene. I'd love pretty much any fic that focuses on Dom, especially if she gets to be in action somehow (investigating, undercover activities, whatever), and if you're interested in writing shipfic/smut involving her (which, yes, I'm very here for), I'm especially fond of Angelica/Dom and Darlene/Dom but also Dom/dudes.

What I Love: I love spy dramas (see...a lot of the rest of my sign-up, oops), and Mr. Robot has that feel even though it's not really a spy drama--the secretive aspects, the hacking/tech angle, and so on. I love the mental illness explorations too, the digging into Elliot's struggle with himself, Dom's low-key loneliness at points, Angela's and Darlene's various neuroses/anxieties, etc. I love how sharp and yet feverish canon feels, in cinematography/directing as well as in some writing and plotting choices (detoxing Elliot in bed, heh heh heh). I love the dark humor (fucking cracked up at the 80s sitcom dream schtick). I love the identity porn aspects, as people try to figure out who fsociety is, who Whiterose is, etc., and the game of who knows what about whom. I love the boardroom/white-collar shenanigans. I love the sense of futility about the revolution and yet how damn hard they'll try anyway, how even Dom seems to have sympathy a bit for them. I love Dom's competence and tenacity, her humanity, her curiosity, her interactions with Angela and Darlene and Whiterose (unknowingly), and I loved her playing the pronoun game in describing her past almost spouse as "them" (so I do headcanon her as queer in some way, though you don't need to play with that if you don't). I ship many things (Angela/Dom, Angela/Darlene, Darlene/Dom, Dom/OFC or OMC, Elliot/Tyrell, Joanna/Tyrell, etc.), so feel free to throw them in as it moves you.

More Prompts/Ideas:

• Dom's background! Who was the almost-spouse? Was it a woman? (Clever use of "them," Dom, my love.) What kind of person were they? Did they spur Dom into the FBI or were they exactly the opposite? What were Dom's training days like? Does she have computer background at all that might make her a good fit for working the fsociety case? (Maybe she's done a few hacking cases before. Maybe she WAS a small-time hacker. Maybe....)
  
• Angela/Dom: That was pretty hot, tbh, Dom basically letting Angela know she's onto her (and Angela fighting back). What if they had weird hatesex around that? What if they cross paths again later, Dom bringing food again, and play the "I'm not interrogating you but actually I am" game again? What if Angela, since she now seems to be in with the Dark Army, starts interrogating back?
  
• Darlene/Dom: Just two Jersey girls swearing at each other in an interrogation room--and now maybe going to work together? Dom trying to work Darlene for more info on Tyrell would be amazing, as would Darlene trying to work Dom back to figure out how to protect Elliot. Does Dom get sucked into further sympathies for fsociety? How do they react to news of Stage 2? (Assuming it goes off in some form.) Do they team up to fight The Greater Danger (?) of the Dark Army? Anything enemies-to-friends/lovers (however uncertain and tenuous) would be great.
  
• Dom & Whiterose: What happens when Dom finds out that the Chinese Minister of State Security is a woman, and a hacker to boot? (Some part of her is subconsciously onto it after that conversation about clothes/"Zhang doesn't have a sister," tbh.) Does she try to get revenge for the shootout that happened in Beijing? Does she go undercover to try to get more info out of Whiterose? Does she play games with Whiterose through Angela? Some Dom/Whiterose (in whatever gender presentation, femme or masc, you want) wouldn't be amiss, either, though I can't really see it as anything but a sort of hatesex.
  
• Dom was so indignant over the proposed deal with China, and it's already come up in this letter that I can see her being quite sympathetic in some ways to fsociety/the whole "yeah, fuck the bankers/the global elite" thing. So consider this carte blanche to play with all "Dom becomes part of fosciety/Dom works as a double agent/Dom willingly helps fsociety a bit/Dom willingly turns a blind eye to some anarchical shit" ideas you might have, whether they end spectacularly well or not (amorality/moral ambiguity is a-ok with me). Dom angsting a bit over it all is good content as well.
  

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A SINGLE MAN (2009)
George Falconer, Jim (A Single Man)

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I love George and Jim so damn much--the easy but heady love they share, their glimpses of domesticity despite the very institutionally homophobic setting, the way Jim lovingly calls George "old man." I'd love anything relatively happy that explores their relationship--hinting at the angst to come is okay, but I do want to smile through any pangs. More of them in the bar the night they meet? Skinny-dipping? Decadent sex? The sky's the limit! Bonus points for working in whatever past of Jim you might like (what is his day to day life like?), since he's fairly thinly characterized in the film.

What I Love: Look at George's fucking face in this gif. Look at how disbelievingly happy he is that this hot-ass younger navy dude groping a beer bottle (which Tom Ford shoots so lovingly multiple times in this film, god fucking bless) in 1940-whatever is into the vibes he's sending. And Jim, from Colorado, stays out there in Los Angeles with George for the rest of his life, does decide to settle down in the warmth of California with this English professor. With their dogs. Arguing about books and interior design in a snarky but affectionate way. That snarky affection, plus the dogs, plus the reading, plus the record-playing, plus the drinking, plus their faces, kills me. I love their age difference, too--George is the elder, and yet the vibe I got was that he was reticent and yet way more obviously head over heels in a sappy, glorious way with this whippersnapper. I love to imagine either George in awe of Jim or Jim taking George the fuck apart and George unable to believe sometimes that he is really worth Jim's excruciatingly close attention and love, but he is, and Jim will devour him and/or screw him into the mattress to prove it. Oh, and their queer experiences--George has had women before, while Jim insists he hasn't, and there's just enough age difference there for me to believe that's possible. Has Jim had an easier time of it (as seen in his willingness to kiss George in the open)? I don't know, but it's fun to think about!

More Prompts/Ideas:

• George goes skinny-dipping with Jim, a la later with Kenny. All the loving descriptions of water/the ocean/nudity and midnight intimacy (or middle-of-the-day intimacy if you want to be really daring) welcome, whether it segues into sex or not.
  
• More of George and Jim on the rock in the flashback scene--it seems fairly early in their relationship, so what else do they hash out? More with Charley, or about Jim's past partners, or about their families? (We see a flash of Jim's family--expanding on that or on George's opague background welcome.) Do they have glorious outdoor sex as well despite the risk of exposure (heh)? Does George take dirtier photos than the one we see him keep in the safety deposit box?
  
• The continuation of the bar scene; where do they go from there? Do they dance later (presumably in private, but you never know)? (Look at this beautiful dancing art—my heart!) I love George's bad dancing with Charley, both the happy ("Green Onions") and the sad ("Stormy Weather"), so feel free to import that vibe as well.
  
• What is their first time like? Is it wild and free and immediate, after the bar scene or something? Does it not happen for a while? Or feel free to delve into a bunch of "firsts," if you like that structure--their first time holding hands? Their first time dancing? Their first time getting ragingly drunk? Their first fuck in their new house? Etc.
  
• In an interview, Matthew Goode mentioned he would have been happy to snuggle up to "the rug on Colin Firth's chest" if the film had asked for it. Run wild with that imagery and the general idea of chests, chest hair, rugs, floor sex/floor confessions/fireside stuff/whatever!
  
• A tumblr mutual (name redacted to protect the guilty) sent me this in fanmail, and I want any and all parts of it: "and you just know that if Jim isn’t screwing George into the mattress (or flocati rug) that George is eating Jim’s ass with the delicacy of a man with a plate of oysters"

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TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (2011)
Bill Haydon (Tinker Tailor 2011), Jim Prideaux (Tinker Tailor 2011)

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What is happiness? It's certainly found only fleetingly in Bill and Jim's lives as seen through canon, and thus I find it all the more precious in fic. Bittersweetness and hinting at the angst to come are fine, but I'd like something before the end with these two that's at least ambiguously happy. I am constantly desperate for more fic with them, so really just about anything is fine, but if you want some jumping off points: them during the war or just after--What were their reunions like? How often did they see each other? What were their day-to-day lives like at the height of canon, before shit hit the fan--what did Jim think of Bill's other lovers? Bits from book canon welcome if you're familiar with it.

What I Love: I love spies, I love the questions of multiple selves and which is true (IMO, all are true to an extent) warring with one another. I love the melancholy attitude of canon; I always find myself rereading the books or rewatching the movie during autumn and winter, as something just seems to match up well, atmospherically. I love the Christmas party scenes, the bitter ironies constantly unraveling, the gorgeous production design and its muted palette. I love Bill's coat and flamboyant shoes and the stupid way he flips his glasses onto his face and holds his blue teacup; I love Jim's stolid face and single manly tear at the end. I love the idea of the closeness of Haydon and Prideaux throughout their years, something I imagine as borderline claustrophobic emotionally despite Bill's continuous casual infidelities (something I imagine Jim always knows about and doesn't much care about until Bill's shit lands him in Karla's hands personally), only beginning to fall apart at the end and even then with, as Oldman and Alfredson suggest on the commentary, an act that's nearly as much an act of love and bitter mercy as it is an act of hate. Is it possible to have a happier slice of time that somehow still captures bits of this melancholy, ironic, beautiful pain, the inherent contradictions between Bill's genuine (if warped) love for Jim and yet his need to make himself the low-key glamorous center of an international political drama few will ever know existed, the snowball running downhill out of control that I imagine his ten plus years of moledom are? I don't know, but I love seeing people try.

More Prompts/Ideas:

• Bill and Jim are working in the southern Mediterranean together after the war (as suggested briefly in the book) and end up spending a breathless night free together. Cue frolicking in bars, on a beach, skinny-dipping, whatever. Or weave in some actual case work, too, if you like--sometimes it's hard to imagine spies ever really having true free time.
  
• After the flashback Christmas party; Jim knows Bill has been with his hands all over Ann Smiley, and yet that, somehow, only makes him even more desperate for Bill's company/hands/mouth/dick/whatever. While I love the idea of Jim having a slight infidelity/almost cuckold-esque kink, I also like the idea of Bill being peculiarly undone by Jim despite all the other people he's had, so showing Bill's weakness for Jim even with Ann Smiley still on his skin is intoxicating to me.
  
• Bill painting/drawing Jim. One time, a 5+1 over the years, whatever. And does Jim memorialize Bill in any particular way? I'm not sure we ever hear in any version of canon about him having any particular artistic talents, but does he...show off, athletically, for Bill, or attempt to write about him in the different languages he knows, or just talk dirty to Bill in Hungarian or something?
  
• They're together at Oxford. Bill is not yet quite his slimy self, just a desperate individual weirdly in love with Jim. Are they pranking one another? Having cricket or rugby dates that turn into them desperately waiting for the rest of the team to disperse so they can get their hands on one another? Outdoor groping/sex/adrenaline-fueled confessions? It happens during winter and they have a snowball fight that turns romantic/dirty?
  
• Jim loves watching Bill with a third person--Peter Guillam? Some random OC picked up?--and loves watching Bill seduce another person...and then be taken apart by either that person or by Jim himself for his infidelity (consensual infidelity in this case, but you know the irony thing lurking in the background...)
  
• Any and all casefic with them--in the Mediterranean, in a snowy hellscape somewhere, dangerously inside the borders of the Soviet Union (is Bill double-dealing on the side? Does Jim get a sense of it even if he can't put it into words?)

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