Dear M/M Rares Author

[hellabaloo]

First of all, thank you for writing for me! Second, above all else, I want to read the story that you most want to write. So, if that means getting inspiration from my letter or finally wrangling that plot bunny stashed away on your hard drive into actual fic, it’s all good with me :)

I will do my best to provide a few prompts, but feel free to take any of them in whatever direction you want; they're only suggestions on my part.

For reference, I'm hellabaloo at AO3, but historiograph on tumblr.

General Likes: I am probably embarrassingly easy to please, because I like tons of stuff. Give me your AUs (in space! spies! amnesia! for want of a nail! gladiator! dueling dance crews! Iron Chef!), gapfillers, or character studies. Tropey fic might be my actual fav (soulbonds! groundhog day! identity porn! arranged marriage/marriage of convenience!), but I love unexpected or interesting subversions of tropes, too. I love stories with tension and chemistry and fics that really explore characters’ relationships with each other, be they good and healthy or bad and dysfunctional. Long and plotty or short and sweet, I will love it either way.

I ship all the pairings I’ve requested romantically, but I'd be more than happy to see gen fic, too.

Past vs. present tense isn't a big deal to me, although generally I prefer third-person narration.

General Dislikes: Rape/non-con, mpreg, terminal illness/deathfic (non-canonical deaths especially; I'm okay with mentions of characters dying, just nothing that focuses exclusively on death please), character bashing, character flaws being glossed over, and characters assuming the worst of each other through lack of communication.


Crossover Fandom, Inception/Nolanverse Batman

Robert Fischer/Bruce Wayne: I can’t remember where or when I came across the idea for this pairing, but it’s been haunting me ever since. Just the idea that the Nolanverse Batman and Gotham exist in the same universe as Inception and dream-share technology is so fascinating to me—how do criminals use it beyond corporate espionage? Which Batman baddies would hire Dom’s crew and what might make them accept the job? And beyond the worlds, the idea of Robert and Bruce knowing each other! Were they prep school chums? Run in the same circles of the young and wealthy? Maybe they’ve never been friendly, but were acquainted enough that Bruce’s bat senses are tingling after Robert starts dismantling his father’s empire and decides to investigate. Or Robert hates Bruce the party boy (he had tickets to that ballet, you dickhead!), but has the most embarrassing crush fascination with the Batman. Or the inception doesn’t take and Robert keeps having these strange repetitive dreams and asks Bruce where he went when he retreated from society for those couple years. Maybe they’re longstanding fuckbuddies, because they know the other wouldn’t sell the story to a tabloid.

It’s hard to say what I want for this pairing, because I will take anything :D

A quick note: because the deaths of Robert’s father and Bruce’s parents are pretty central to the plot and the characters themselves, this ship is sort of the exception to my general no-death!fic request, but I’d still prefer if the focus were on dealing with and moving on rather than the deaths themselves.


Football RPF

These are pretty much all prompts for ‘canon’ (mostly because football gives us so many great narratives all on its own, and I love everything that comes with that), but feel free to go full non-footballer AU. I am just terrible at coming up with AU prompts /o\

Lionel Messi/Neymar: So these two have totally turned the (b)romance levels up to 11 this season. Ugh, and what a season too! Basically any sort of post-victory porn would be amazing. Neymar decides to really show Leo his gratitude for giving him that penalty against Granada. Leo is so proud of Neymar’s goal in each of the quarterfinals/semifinals/final record in the Champions League that he feels some proper congratulations are in order. Neymar being Leo’s hype man during the treble celebrations at Camp Nou. Heck, them cuddling during the celebrations! Or if you want to go in a less porny, more serious direction, how did Neymar settle into Barcelona, going from calling Leo by his last name in one of his videos to saying Leo was his best friend, on and off the pitch, in Barcelona? Maybe Leo, used to having strike partners come to Barcelona (Titi, Zlatan, David Villa), fall a little bit in love with him, and then leave, took a while to warm up to Neymar. Anything building off that quote from Leo about doing for Neymar what Ronaldinho did for him when he made the first team would be fantastic.

Lionel Messi/Sergio Agüero: My favorite Argie boyfriends! I mean, everyone gets in on the Leo-lovin, but Leo and Kun are just too adorable for words. I love how Kun has always been able to bring Leo out of his shell and while he’s clearly, totally enamored of Leo-the-footballer, he’s just as much enamored by Leo-the-person. For Leo, it seems like once he decides you’re part of his circle, it’s for life, and all the stories Leo tells about Kun being able to make him laugh and not knowing/caring who he was when they first met really seems to keep him grounded. Friends-to-lovers works so well for these two, same with awkward, teenage first times/exploration fic. Anything set during this past season—I mean, the UEFA did us a solid by drawing Man City to play against Barça so we could have Leo-Kun reunions and apparently they spent Valentine’s Day together with their girlfriends??—would be awesome. How does Kun deal with losing, two years in a row, in somewhat embarrassing fashion, not just to Barcelona but to a Leo who’s doing his football from another galaxy thing. Or even more broadly, Barça just won their second treble and City won nothing, does that ever put a strain on their relationship? But now they’re playing together at Copa America and everything is right again ;)

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang/Marco Reus: Oh man, this is my newest and shiniest footie ship and I have no idea how it happened. (That, upon reflection, is a bald-faced lie. It’s totally neyvenger’s fault and the fact that Auba and Marco are so damn domestic together. And their Batman-Robin celebration!) I love how touchy-feely these two are and totally clicking on and off the pitch. I’d love fic with awkward flirting/wooing by buying each other increasingly ridiculous hats and/or shoes. Or what happens after that one training session where Auba and Marco had to be separated to keep the team on task. After Marco got busted for driving without a license, Auba started driving him to practice, which seems like the set-up for something, I just can figure out what. Comforting each other through a crappy season and Kloppo leaving. Making plans to meet up during the summer break, and hanging out at the beach together. Or the less obviously porny route, what is it like for Auba to come to Dortmund and strike up a partnership with Marco, knowing he was bought to replace Mario Götze. (I’m not a huge fan of Marco/Mario, so don’t feel like anything shippy or post-breakup has to be included.)


NFL RPF

Colin Kaepernick/Alex Smith: I have a confession, that Alex has gotten out of San Francisco where he literally could do nothing about the damn ‘game-manager’ moniker or being tainted by association of the crap years before Harbaugh blew through makes me so happy. From an outsider’s perspective at least, it seems like Kansas City and its fans treat him much better than a lot of Niners’ fans ever did. THAT BEING SAID, I love love love Alex/Colin as rivals fighting to be the starting QB on the field and competing to see who can be the first to make the other come in the bedroom. Or Alex, the seasoned-veteran taking Colin, the cocky, young gun to task. Or an epic, season-long game of gay chicken ends in make-outs, because Reasons. But I’m also taken with the idea that while they were both with the Niners that they weren’t really close (they were competing for the same job), but after everything that went down Colin finds that Alex really is the only other person that has any sort of reference point for being on a team coached by Jim Harbaugh and he’s a pretty good listener besides.


The Pacific

Eugene Sledge/Merriel “Snafu” Shelton: From their very first interaction, I was so all over Eugene/Snafu, but also loved every development and change of their relationship throughout the series. I love these two whether Snafu is giving Eugene shit (he can be the textbook definition of pig-tail puller), they're yelling at each other (angry, rough sex in the muck of Okinawa full of desperation, D/s elements, breathplay, or watersports―unf), or Snafu is being surprisingly empathetic (when Eugene learns that his dog died, Snafu looks like he wants to make everything better for Sledge and it makes me wibble every time). I always love to read introspective pieces about how the characters are dealing with the whole environment of being at war―from needing to be hyper-focused during a firefight, trying to do a job, making sure the guys next to them don't die to the weird, in-between times when they're just lounging about and waiting for the next set of orders. There will never be enough fics about the train scene, in my opinion. Do Eugene and Snafu roadtrip to Burgie’s wedding together? Or, to take inspiration from their real lives (which, admittedly I’m a little wary of), what's Eugene's reaction to hearing from Snafu after decades of radio silence?

Eugene Sledge/Sid Phillips: Eugene and Sid, post-war, is endlessly fascinating to me, because even though they fought in the same war, they lived through totally different parts―Sid on Guadalcanal and the beginning, Eugene on Peleliu and Okinawa and the end―and have similar, though not shared, experiences. I'd love to read a fic that deals with how their friendship changes, or doesn't, in the aftermath of everything. For pre-canon fics, I'd love to see something about Sid and Eugene's friendship growing up and how they each approached the war. I adore first time exploration fics, and would love to see it with teenage Eugene/Sid. But heartbreaking, unrequited love on Eugene's part is also so, so good. There’s this moment in the last episode, when Sid tells Eugene he’s going to marry Mary Houston and Eugene pauses like he knew this was coming, but still wasn’t expecting it and can’t say anything because he loves Sid and wants him to be happy.

Feel free to include other characters, especially Burgie, Bill Leyden, and Jay De L'Eau if you'd like. And I really like the headcanon that Snafu and Gene Roe from Band of Brothers are acquainted, but don't feel obligated to include it.