Yuletide, 2021
Oct. 19th, 2021 05:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kateoftheangelsDear Yuletide Creator,
Thank you for offering to create for me! I promise that I'm easy to please, and am certain I will be delighted with whatever you devise.
Here's some further information if you think it might be helpful, and possible directions you may want to take your story in, should you find yourself in need of inspiration. If this additional detail is not for you, please feel free to skip it in its entirety.
My AO3: Kate_Wisdom
General likes: Banter, Best Enemies, Bodyswaps, Comrades-in-arms, Canon-era Crossovers, Enemies to Lovers, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Intensity, Ethical Dilemmas, Explicit Content, Forced Intimacy, Historical AUs, Hurt/Comfort, Iron Woobieness, Moral Shades of Grey, Plot, Punishment, Restrained Language, Spanking and Corporal Punishment, Sex Pollen, Situationally-Appropriate Crying, Third Parties Made Them Do It, World-Building
Request 1
Fandom: Colditz (1972)
Character: Preston
DNWs: Onscreen Character Death or Permanent Injury/Mutilation (or offscreen, for Preston), Underage, Character/Ship Bashing (specifically no Caroline-bashing), Dark Preston, Dark Allies or Dark Kommandant, Unrequested non-canon sexuality/gender/race/identity headcanons, Sex Changes.
Background:
Colditz (TV, 1972) is a British TV show that ran from 1972 to 1974, and is about Allied POWs imprisoned at the supposedly escape-proof Colditz Castle in WW2. The show is so great, in terms of setting and historicity, featuring real escape attempts both successful and unsuccessful. Many of its characters were also based on real people, including one of Season One’s main POV characters, Pat Grant, an expy of British Army captain Pat Reid, POW and author of the book on which the show was based.
The show wasn’t just a rollicking adventure story filled with escapes and derring-do, its episodes dealing with loneliness and patriotism and what happens when enemies and uneasy allies are forced to live in close contact with each other (I should warn for some period-typical British chauvinism).
It had a great ensemble cast, as well, which included US movie star Robert Wagner, and Bernard Hepton as the humane, conflicted Kommandant (who would later switch sides to star as Belgian resistance leader Albert Foret in Secret Army); it also had mostly great acting, particularly by Jack Hedley as magnificent iron woobie Colonel Preston, and David McCallum, fresh from his starring turn in Man from U.N.C.L.E. (TV).
Resources:
All of its 28 episodes are available on BBC iPlayer, as well as on Youtube.
This is an excellent resource on both the show and the actors, including photographs of its filming locations (the real castle is in Leipzig, Dresden, but the show was mostly shot in the UK).
Character:
John Preston, played by the dashing Jack Hedley. Preston is the strong and immensely capable Senior British Officer of Colditz Castle, who epitomises characteristic British stiff-upper-lip restraint. He leads the sad, desperate men of the British contingent in Colditz by straight-backed example; he is respected by every man in the camp, both ally and foe, including his Best Enemy, Kommandant Karl; at the same time, he’s just as lonely and disillusioned as all the prisoners imprisoned there.
Prompts - - Gen:
Although Preston is my favourite, and I would love a missing scene or character study of him before, during or after the war, I would equally love a story that made use of Colditz’s ensemble cast, as long as it involved Preston in some principal way: future fic, backstories, missing scenes, vignettes, or plotty episodes. Some ideas:
+ A heartwarming ensemble piece. Last year I received this magnificent treat fromlilliburlero, where the boys put on a Christmas show, and Preston delivers Prospero's soliloquy, and it was utterly perfect. This year, how about a game of five-a-side or cricket in the square, or speed chess?
+ Series finale: What if Mohn had not in fact taken himself off the board for the Colditz endgame, and remained in the camp to countermand the Kommandant’s surrender, insist that the castle ought to be held by German forces, and Allied prisoners who resisted be dealt with? What action would Preston and the boys have been forced to take to protect themselves and other POWs in the camp?
+ Post-war: would Preston have stayed in the military, and tried his best to help the Allies deal with the fallout? Given his expertise, would he have consulted in the running of the POW camps in England? What would a Bad Ending/Enemies Win setting and/or conclusion look like for Preston (I want him to survive it, but not all other characters need to).
+ Crossover: What if there was an Enemy at the Door crossover? Richter and Reinicke replace Karl and Mohn in Colditz. How do Preston and the boys deal with them (and would the outcome of, say, S2E4, with the three British commandos, have been different)? Would the endgame change with these very different Germans in charge?
+ Bodyswaps: What kind of mayhem would ensue if Preston swapped bodies with Simon Carter (and, in a prompt that belongs to the shipping section, they had to bang to switch back)? Or with the Kommandant? With Mohn?
+ Historical AUs: What if the boys were prisoners of war in WW1 instead? Or in the Napoleonic wars, or the Silesian wars, or even in Roman British times?
Prompts - - Shipping:
Preston has zero opportunities for romantic contact in the show; when he loses his wife Caroline in S1E9, he is not permitted to even accept a gesture of comfort from Pat Grant, his second-in-command, who adores him, or Flt Lt Simon Carter, who spends all season butting heads with him but who does it because he adores him, or from the Kommandant who has to break the terrible news to him, and who, to no one’s surprise, secretly also adores him also.
+ Perhaps Preston lets one of them comfort him after Caroline’s death (or, really, any of the other ensemble members)? There would be conflict and guilt afterwards, because any romantic contact would still be illegal and a court-martialable offence, but the comfort and companionship might be too strong to resist.
+ Perhaps the camp is struck by a misplaced Allied raid, or an escape attempt has gone awry, and Preston needs to rescue one of these hapless gentlemen - - or, even more deliciously, finds himself in need of rescue? Or perhaps Preston needs to discipline Pat or Simon or one of the other men over some military infraction? Or the Kommandant needs to punish his Best Enemy, but he can't quite manage it, and Preston has to step in to assist?
+ Post-war, perhaps Pat or Simon or one of the others seeks Preston out - - then a lonely widower trying to raise two small boys on his lonesome. What would that bittersweet post-series future happiness in post-war Britain look like for them?
Request 2
Fandom: Enemy at the Door (TV)
Characters: Richter
DNWs: Onscreen Character Death, Permanent Injury/Mutilation (or offscreen, for Richter or Philip), Underage, Character/Ship Bashing or bashing of spouses, Dark Richter or Dark Philip, Nazi apologism, Unrequested non-canon sexuality/gender/race/identity Headcanons, Sex Changes.
Background:
Enemy at the Door (TV) is a British TV show that ran from 1978 – 1980, and is about the German occupation of the Channel Islands during WW2. This show is so great, in terms of setting and historicity, and also its writing, which excellently portrays the balance of power and fragile harmony between the islanders and the German occupying forces.
The show centres around Dr Philip Martel (Dr Who stalwart Bernard Horsfall), a member of the Guernsey Controlling Committee, and Major Dieter Richter (the late, great Alfred Burke), the commander of the German occupying forces, as well as a sterling ensemble cast that includes Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Anthony Stewart Head in his first TV role. It’s a historical war drama that explores conflict and patriotism and enemies forced to live in close contact with each other, telling its characters’ stories in nuanced character arcs that spans the two seasons, and dealing with ethical dilemmas and slice-of-life events in complex, moral shades of grey.
The above is the Talking Pictures 2020 trailer, but it’s this excellent fanvid by lostspook1 that really captures the thoughtful, melancholy atmosphere of the show;thisbluespirit has a fandom manifesto here (both linked to with thanks).
Resources:
All 26 of its episodes are available on Amazon Prime, as well as on archive.org.
Here is a useful resource that includes a DVD quality review, episode summaries, and lists of cast and crew.
Madeleine Bunting’s The Model Occupation: The Channel Islands Under German Rule, 1940-1945 is a balanced and fairly non-apologist account of the occupation.
Character:
Dieter Richter, played by ascetic, saintly-faced Alfie Burke. Richter is the urbane Kommandant of the island of Guernsey, who was a professor of philosophy in peacetime. Richter is very much a military commander - - he takes decisive actions, eg in court-martialling the young soldier whom one of the islanders accuses of rape, and having him executed by firing squad - - but at the same time he does try to mitigate the hardships of the occupation for the islanders. He’s also morally conflicted about the atrocities of the regime; unfortunately, not sufficiently to do enough about it (when confronted in S2E3, he tells Dr Martel, “Whatever may be the abuse of man, that is the use of nature: first survive”).
Prompts - - Gen
Although Richter is my favourite, and I would love a missing scene or character study of him before, during or after the war, I'm very interested in this historical period and place, and would equally love a story that makes use of the cast and setting: future fic, backstories, missing scenes, vignettes or whole plotty episodes. Some ideas:
+ A scene from the Season 3 canon never gave us, post the Season 2 finale in April 1943. For instance, as the war progressed, the Channel Islands found themselves ignored and Guernseyans faced tremendous deprivations - - how would Richter and his men have addressed this situation? In July 1944, the von Stauffenberg assassination and coup attempt failed; as part of the aforementioned plot, von Stülpnagel, the military governor of occupied France, managed to arrest most of the SS commanders in the Paris garrison. What, if anything, would Richter and his men have done about Reinicke, the SS attache attached to their command?
+ Also in July 1944, fanatical Admiral Huffmeier arrived in Guernsey and was shortly promoted to Channel Islands commander. What would Richter (and Reinicke) done about this lunatic, who refused to surrender the Channel Islands to the Allied forces even though Germany had surrendered, and how would they have negotiated the last difficult lead-up to V-day?
+ Richter has so many great, conflict-ridden interactions with the islanders that tread the line between respectful and coercive (as Olive says, “When is it not just survival? When does it become helping the enemy?”). I’d love to see him taking tea with Olive Martel, or calling on Helen Porteous, or crossing swords with Peter Porteous; perhaps you might envision a social event to which the Martels invited Richter because they wanted to get something out of him, and vice versa.
+ Crossover with Colditz (TV)! Karl, Ullmann and/or Mohn come to visit Guernsey, or Preston, Pat and/or Simon are part of a British raid on the aircraft defence system on Sark. How would Richter and co. have reacted?
+ Bodyswaps: What kind of mayhem would ensue if Richter swapped bodies with Reinicke (and, in a prompt that belongs to the shipping section, they had to bang to switch back)? Or with General Muller? Or with Clive? (Not for nothing do I append this beautiful classic black-and-white photo of ASH in satin and lace <3)
+ Historical AUs: What if the Germans invaded Guernsey in WW1? Or during the Silesian wars, or the time of the Vikings? Would Richter have been a reluctant captain in Frederick the Great's army, or an even more reluctant Viking chieftain?
Prompts - - Shipping
The show doesn't sugar-coat, nor is it apologist for, the dark moral choices made by Richter or indeed the other Nazis or islanders on Guernsey, and I would be interested in all dark moral choices and fraught non/dubious consent shippy scenarios, with Philip Martel, with Reinicke, and really anyone else in the cast, which would involve Richter suffering stoically and being wracked by guilt.
+ Perhaps Richter was unexpectedly placed in harm’s way by enemy action or his own side? Dr Martel would clearly be the only man whom he could rely on to administer both medical and non-medical treatment. Or Richter finds himself compelled as part of his duties to subjugate one of the islanders in all senses of the term, and Martel is the only one he can bear to inflict himself on? Or in an even darker version of events, after V-Day, the islanders brand Martel a collaborator, and force him to punish Richter as a sign of loyalty?
+ Alternatively, I would be delighted with these gentlemen bickering over radio requisitions, or risking their lives/their careers to rescue each other (Martel from the terrible SS a la Judgement of Solomon or Richter from a POW internment in a terrible Soviet gulag), or sharing a romantic breakfast of ersatz coffee at the Kommandantur or the Hotel Normandie. (Please deal with Anna and Olive respectfully in the manner you think best -- perhaps Olive is all for her husband's uncomfortable closeness with the Kommandant, or perhaps she's decided to pack it in and leave Philip for That Nice Doctor Forbes.)
+ Richter is definitely the sort of commanding officer who would wearily do his duty when one of his senior officers was imperilled or captured in a commando raid or by the Resistance, even if that officer was Reinicke. They hate each other rather cordially, and though Reinicke is a stickler for military hierarchy, he is also a terrible troll; the fact that both of them are at such ideological odds with each other, and would hate this situation equally, is part of its draw.
Request 3
Fandom: Public Eye (TV)
Character: Frank Marker, Helen Mortimer
DNWs: Character Death, Underage, Character/Ship Bashing (except for Denis, you can bash him freely), Dark Frank or Dark Helen, Unrequested non-canon sexuality/gender/race/identity Headcanons, Sex Changes, Permanent Injury/Mutilation.
Background:
Public Eye (TV) is a British TV show that ran for seven seasons, from 1965-1975, and is about a private enquiry agent who did actually realistic private investigative work - - debt collections, gathering evidence for divorce cases, bankruptcies, employee due diligence, etc - - in a far cry from the glamorous life of private detectives in the Magnum P.I. mould who solved cases with their fists and always got their man.
Public Eye’s first three seasons are mostly lost, with only five early episodes remaining; the production values are what you’d expect from the time period; much of it is incredibly slow-moving - - but in spite of those drawbacks, the show is so, so great. It focused on the mundane problems in the ordinary, quotidian lives of ordinary people, and somehow made those ordinary lives and hopes and tragedies extraordinary.
The show largely owes its success to its writing, and its main character. Frank Marker is a deeply decent, fallible working-class chap who charges an unassuming 6.50 a day plus expenses (when the going rate is more like 6 pounds an hour). Frank occasionally failed to solve cases, refused to charge needy clients more than what they could pay, occasionally got thumped for his trouble, and was famously sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit - - which allowed the show to put on an experimental Season 4 (set in Brighton where Frank serves out his probation, meets Helen Mortimer, and slowly reintegrates into public life), a mini-series of seven stellar serialised episodes.
It also owes its success to its leading man, the incomparable Alfred Burke, who would go on to star as Dieter Richter in Enemy at the Door. Burke was a master at making the ordinary extraordinary; his Marker was a tour de force, a character like no other, an everyman whom the British public took to their hearts.
Resources:
All 51 of its surviving episodes are available on DVD. The five recovered early episodes plus Season 4 are on a private playlist (courtesy of lostspook1). Seasons 5 to 7 are here on Youtube, though there are a couple of episodes missing.
Here are episode summaries and reviews for Season 4, and here is a comprehensive series guide including lists of cast and crew, a series production history, and interviews with Burke and the showrunner Michael Chapman.
Characters:
Down-at-heel Frank had a strong sense of decency and principle; he didn’t enjoy most of the grimy aspects of his business, for all that he was good at his work, but he did it because he wanted to help people. He was, however, an intensely private person who hated to rely on others for help; he had no close friends and, in a departure from the noir detective cliché, he wasn’t a womaniser; in fact, he had no on-screen flings in all his seven seasons, let alone a proper romance.
The person who got the closest to Frank in all seven seasons was Helen Mortimer. In the Season 4 opener “Welcome to Brighton?”, he arrived on the doorstep of Helen’s boarding house in Brighton, wary and broken by his prison experiences; like Frank, she had a penchant for helping people (she provided halfway-house services to ex-convicts on probation), and she took him under her wing. They bonded when he was falsely accused of workplace theft in S4E3; she accompanied him on a stake-out that wasn’t a date in S4E6; her no-good deserting husband Denis showed up again in S4E7 and she showed him the door.
… and then in S5E1’s A Mug Named Frank,the showrunners Frank decided he was becoming too domesticated, and, since his probation was finally over, it was time to leave Brighton (and Helen) behind and relocate to Windsor.
Helen did however make a return to visit Frank in Windsor for an episode in each of the following two seasons afterwards (S6E10 It’s A Woman’s Privilege and S7E2’s How About A Cup of Tea).
Here is a shipping fanvid courtesy of lostspook1; like this pairing, it will charm you and break your heart.
Prompts - - Gen:
I am aware that Yuletide matching is and, but I would also enjoy a fic for either of these two characters: future fic, backstories, character studies, missing scenes, vignettes or whole plotty episodes. Some prompts:
+ Case fic: any tiny mundane case would make me so happy - - true to canon, it doesn’t have to contain much action or adventure, and could be as serious or as cracky as you like. I’m endlessly charmed by Frank being bemused by how the other half lives, and love his dynamic with Percy. Maybe Helen Mortimer gets to solve a case when Frank happens to be away?
+ Future fic: I have always wanted to see how Shirley in S4E4’s My Life’s My Own turns out. Maybe she comes back to Brighton to look for Frank and meets Helen for the first time? Or brave, tragic Rose Mason in S5E6’s Come into the Garden, Rose: maybe she takes Frank out for tea and gives him a new perspective on his solitary lifestyle.
+ Crossover: as aforenoted, Frank and Richter are played by the same actor. In S4E3, Frank gives his birth year as 1923, which makes him young enough to be Richter’s son. Richter spent six years in Cambridge after the Great War; what if he had a liaison with Frank’s mother there and left without knowing she was in the family way? Frank would have been eighteen in 1941; according to the PE tie-in novel, he served in the merchant Navy in WW2 - - would he have encountered the Guernsey Kommandant, or been captured and sent to Colditz?
+ Bodyswaps: What kind of mayhem would ensue if Frank swapped bodies with Helen (and, in a prompt that belongs to the shipping section, they had to bang to switch back)? Or with Percy? With Vyvyan Reveldale?
+ Historical AUs: What if Frank ran a dodgy detective agency in the 1940s instead, or in Victorian times (he would so be the anti-Sherlock Holmes, with Percy as Not Inspector Lestrade!)? What if he was a holistic investigator, like Dirk Gently?
Prompts - - Shipping:
I confess to shipping it, intensely, and would be thrilled to receive a shippy fic for them, particularly as they never get together in canon (and didn’t get the Season 8 which would, according to Roger Marshall in the S4 DVD set booklet, have seen Frank going back to Brighton and Helen). Some prompts:
+ Fix-it fic: It can be done, even though Frank is a solitary, self-contained, self-isolating character who doesn’t believe he deserves nice things. In fact, and Season Seven was building to it, with Frank starting to recognise that his unbearable loneliness was something he could in fact address if he allowed himself to let his guard down. Maybe it happens organically, with him growing weary of the perpetually-broke, physically-demanding life of an enquiry agent? Or it’s triggered by circumstances - - if Helen was in trouble, he’d rush to her side, and once he’s there he might fall under her spell again and decide to stay.
+ Non fix-it fic: she comes to look for him again or he goes to visit her, they spend the night together at last, and then he leaves her again, because he knows he’ll only drag her down and she deserves better…
+ Missing scene: they enjoy their cute not-date at the end of S4E6 so much that they go out to catch another show together? Or Frank feels badly after the way he rejects Helen in S7E2 and sends her a note of apology? I’d be delighted by fluffiness or bittersweetness or both these things at once.
+ Percy and Vyvyan: though Helen is Frank's one true love, I would also gleefully accept Frank and Percy hooking up drunkenly, or having to fake date for a case, or if criminals made them do it! I would also be thrilled if Frank found himself in similar straits with young Vyvyan, particularly since canon did give us the drunken hookup:
Helen would be very disapproving, but I would be delighted!
Request 4
Fandom: Political RPF - UK 20th-21st C
Character: Keir Starmer
DNWs: Character Death, Underage, Character Bashing, Dark Starmer, Unrequested non-canon sexuality/gender/race/identity Headcanons, Sex Changes, Permanent Injury/Mutilation, Tory Apologism.
Background:
Political RPF - UK 20th-21st C ought to be a British TV show; at any rate, its proceedings have been televised for the last 31 years. If it was a TV show, it would be such a great one, filled with drama and witty rhetoric and cutthroat deals being struck and people purporting to care about their country.
Alas, it is a reality of present political life. Perhaps shipping front-benchers or speculating on forbidden crossbench romance and idly imagining politicians engaging in corporal punishment and hatesex isn't the way most of us deal with the terrible uncertainties of real life post-Brexit Britain, but fandom does occasionally provide a strangely comforting outlet...
I ought to say that while I am interested in the politicking, I am agnostic to your actual politics and how you choose to write about it. That said, in the current climate, Tory (and in particular Boris) apologism isn’t going to go down at all well, so fair warning.
Resources:
The Parliamentary schedule and archives are here, together with a link to the Hansard transcript of Keir’s Parliamentary speeches, contributions and voting record.
Here is a link to Keir’s official CV and his bio on peoplepill.com; his New Statesman profile is here.
And here is Keir’s page at the Lolitics wiki, the celebrated fannish resource on British politics circa 2010 todate.
Character:
The former Director of Public Prosecutions and barrister at well-known criminal law and human rights set Doughty Street Chambers, Keir Starmer QC, now leader of the Labour Party. A working-class boy with a first class in Law from the University of Leeds, he earned his peerage prosecuting criminals and terrorists for Her Majesty’s Government, and entered politics relatively recently in 2015, taking the party by storm; after Jeremy Corbyn’s drubbing by Boris Johnson in the UK General Elections of 2019, he stepped up to take the helm. He was reportedly the inspiration for Bridget Jones' Mr Darcy.
His critics say he’s a throwback to the dark days of New Labour, and even more unforgivably, that he’s Boring. But he’s shown himself unafraid to tackle tough issues and make tough decisions. By many people’s lights, he’s shown himself to be the grown-up the squabbling, deeply divided Labour Party should listen to, and that, in these dark times, the nation needs.
(He owns a donkey sanctuary, and looks good in glitter.)
Prompts - - Gen:
I am an inveterate consumer of legal dramas, and would appreciate a vignette from Starmer’s time as a barrister and later Director of Public Prosecutions, which The Lawyer summarises here.
+ For instance, in 1996, when Starmer was a junior barrister, he acted for a pair of environmentalists who were sued by McDonald’s over a factsheet critical of the company. Starmer’s clients lost at first instance, but 2005 they won a landmark appeal in the European Court of Human Rights against the British government, on the basis that they had been denied a fair trial because of the lack of legal aid. Here’s the young barrister’s discussion of the case in 1996 and 2005, which might provide meaty gen legal drama fodder.
+ Harrison/Weatherill: I am also an admirer of Walter Harrison, the scrappy 1970s Labour Deputy Whip and Bernard "Jack" Weatherill, his decent, upright Tory counterpart, whose star-crossed 1970s Lolitics love story - - essentially, on the night in March 1979 that Callaghan’s Labour government fell, Jack offered to destroy his own career by abstaining from the critical confidence vote to honour a gentleman's agreement between them, and Walter refused to accept his sacrifice and chose to let the government go down instead - - was immortalised in James Graham's magnificent play This House. I decided it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to include them in this request and then tell my writer I would welcome an or match (which I do!), and I also thought there would be zero chance of a Lolitics match for these three characters so I decided to focus on Starmer, but you might be so inclined to write a crossover in which a present-day Starmer thinks back to this pivotal display of crossbench gallantry (maybe the ghosts of these Best Enemies haunt him in the House of Commons!), or a 17-year-old Starmer is on hand to witness Thatcher’s Conservatives stealing power that fateful night, and swears to do something about it when he grows up. Or, you know, feel free to write me something that focuses on Harrisill and has minimal (or zero) Starmer in it, because I love them so very much.
+ Historical AUs: What if Starmer and Miliband and the present shadow cabinet were suddenly transported to the 1970s and stood side by side with Harrison? Would they have been able to help stave off Maggie and the terrible deprivations of the Thatcher years? What if Starmer was Shadow PM during the prewar years, or with Cromwell in Tudor times?
+ Bodyswaps: What kind of mayhem would ensue if Starmer swapped bodies with Miliband (and, in a prompt that belongs to the shipping section, they had to bang to switch back)? Or, God help him, with Boris?
Prompts - - Shipping:
The vaste swathe of the British public, not to mention the wider world, broadly consider UK politics to be deadly dull, but to the Lolitics consumer it’s anything but. We envision the fandom's characters and pairings as fascinating people with thrilling (and fictitious-but-not- unlikely!) inner lives, kinks, and desires. We imagine them constantly stabbing each other in the back or the front, while reneging on electoral promises or selling each other out to the press, and occasionally while engaging in political bed-fellowing or hatesex or forbidden crossbench romances.
For Keir Starmer the character, who has hung up his shingle on being the grown-up in the Labour camp, I don’t see why he shouldn’t take up politics’ mantle as Daddy Starmer. British politics has always had a line in discipline (boarding school practices aside, there’s the received wisdom that the party whips don’t just whip votes, et cetera). Besides, under that earnest, blandly handsome exterior lies the mind of a forensic litigator with a nose for the kill and a willingness to get his hands dirty in order to get the job done. His predecessor would never have spanked anyone for the good of the British people or the Labour party, but Daddy Starmer would, in spades.
+ I would really be happy for him to discipline any of his fellow politicians, though no one deserves a spanking more than my perennial favourite political RPF character, David Cameron, who will go down in infamy as the man responsible for the utter catastrophe of Brexit. Again, Jeremy Corbyn would never have done it, but Daddy Starmer would be just the man for the job.
+ Starmer brought back Ed Miliband, the man who recruited him into politics in 2013, and whose soft-left politics resemble his own. Had Miliband led the Labour party to victory rather than catastrophic election defeat in 2015, Starmer would likely have joined his Cabinet. In the event, post-defeat, Miliband went off to see friends in Australia, growing a beard and reflecting on his failure. Now he’s back, and has used to being the top dog; you’d imagine it would be no simple task for Daddy Starmer to bring him to heel and ensure his loyalty. Feel free to go in any direction your heart takes you, whether it’s flowers and charm and candlelit dinners, or via all the available disciplinary items in the Labour Whips’ offices, or both.
+ One might however imagine that even Daddy Starmer would hesitate at the prospect of spanking Granddaddy Tony, even though TB has been quite complimentary. As such, I’d expect Starmer would first try the candlelit dinner route with him, as well as the older members of this Lolitics tagset. (According to the New Statesman, he took a similar approach 2013, wherein ”he wooed members individually, over coffees and lunches (he organised early and was handsomely funded)”!)
+ Except for Ed Balls; I would derive immense enjoyment from seeing Starmer tango with Balls. Hey, we know Starmer’s very partial to glitter; he might be up for sticking a rose between his teeth as well.
Thank you again for creating for me, and I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with this Yuletide!
Thank you for offering to create for me! I promise that I'm easy to please, and am certain I will be delighted with whatever you devise.
Here's some further information if you think it might be helpful, and possible directions you may want to take your story in, should you find yourself in need of inspiration. If this additional detail is not for you, please feel free to skip it in its entirety.
My AO3: Kate_Wisdom
General likes: Banter, Best Enemies, Bodyswaps, Comrades-in-arms, Canon-era Crossovers, Enemies to Lovers, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Intensity, Ethical Dilemmas, Explicit Content, Forced Intimacy, Historical AUs, Hurt/Comfort, Iron Woobieness, Moral Shades of Grey, Plot, Punishment, Restrained Language, Spanking and Corporal Punishment, Sex Pollen, Situationally-Appropriate Crying, Third Parties Made Them Do It, World-Building
Request 1
Fandom: Colditz (1972)
Character: Preston
DNWs: Onscreen Character Death or Permanent Injury/Mutilation (or offscreen, for Preston), Underage, Character/Ship Bashing (specifically no Caroline-bashing), Dark Preston, Dark Allies or Dark Kommandant, Unrequested non-canon sexuality/gender/race/identity headcanons, Sex Changes.
Background:
Colditz (TV, 1972) is a British TV show that ran from 1972 to 1974, and is about Allied POWs imprisoned at the supposedly escape-proof Colditz Castle in WW2. The show is so great, in terms of setting and historicity, featuring real escape attempts both successful and unsuccessful. Many of its characters were also based on real people, including one of Season One’s main POV characters, Pat Grant, an expy of British Army captain Pat Reid, POW and author of the book on which the show was based.
The show wasn’t just a rollicking adventure story filled with escapes and derring-do, its episodes dealing with loneliness and patriotism and what happens when enemies and uneasy allies are forced to live in close contact with each other (I should warn for some period-typical British chauvinism).
It had a great ensemble cast, as well, which included US movie star Robert Wagner, and Bernard Hepton as the humane, conflicted Kommandant (who would later switch sides to star as Belgian resistance leader Albert Foret in Secret Army); it also had mostly great acting, particularly by Jack Hedley as magnificent iron woobie Colonel Preston, and David McCallum, fresh from his starring turn in Man from U.N.C.L.E. (TV).
Resources:
All of its 28 episodes are available on BBC iPlayer, as well as on Youtube.
This is an excellent resource on both the show and the actors, including photographs of its filming locations (the real castle is in Leipzig, Dresden, but the show was mostly shot in the UK).
Character:
John Preston, played by the dashing Jack Hedley. Preston is the strong and immensely capable Senior British Officer of Colditz Castle, who epitomises characteristic British stiff-upper-lip restraint. He leads the sad, desperate men of the British contingent in Colditz by straight-backed example; he is respected by every man in the camp, both ally and foe, including his Best Enemy, Kommandant Karl; at the same time, he’s just as lonely and disillusioned as all the prisoners imprisoned there.
Prompts - - Gen:
Although Preston is my favourite, and I would love a missing scene or character study of him before, during or after the war, I would equally love a story that made use of Colditz’s ensemble cast, as long as it involved Preston in some principal way: future fic, backstories, missing scenes, vignettes, or plotty episodes. Some ideas:
+ A heartwarming ensemble piece. Last year I received this magnificent treat from
lilliburlero, where the boys put on a Christmas show, and Preston delivers Prospero's soliloquy, and it was utterly perfect. This year, how about a game of five-a-side or cricket in the square, or speed chess?+ Series finale: What if Mohn had not in fact taken himself off the board for the Colditz endgame, and remained in the camp to countermand the Kommandant’s surrender, insist that the castle ought to be held by German forces, and Allied prisoners who resisted be dealt with? What action would Preston and the boys have been forced to take to protect themselves and other POWs in the camp?
+ Post-war: would Preston have stayed in the military, and tried his best to help the Allies deal with the fallout? Given his expertise, would he have consulted in the running of the POW camps in England? What would a Bad Ending/Enemies Win setting and/or conclusion look like for Preston (I want him to survive it, but not all other characters need to).
+ Crossover: What if there was an Enemy at the Door crossover? Richter and Reinicke replace Karl and Mohn in Colditz. How do Preston and the boys deal with them (and would the outcome of, say, S2E4, with the three British commandos, have been different)? Would the endgame change with these very different Germans in charge?
+ Bodyswaps: What kind of mayhem would ensue if Preston swapped bodies with Simon Carter (and, in a prompt that belongs to the shipping section, they had to bang to switch back)? Or with the Kommandant? With Mohn?
+ Historical AUs: What if the boys were prisoners of war in WW1 instead? Or in the Napoleonic wars, or the Silesian wars, or even in Roman British times?
Prompts - - Shipping:
Preston has zero opportunities for romantic contact in the show; when he loses his wife Caroline in S1E9, he is not permitted to even accept a gesture of comfort from Pat Grant, his second-in-command, who adores him, or Flt Lt Simon Carter, who spends all season butting heads with him but who does it because he adores him, or from the Kommandant who has to break the terrible news to him, and who, to no one’s surprise, secretly also adores him also.
+ Perhaps Preston lets one of them comfort him after Caroline’s death (or, really, any of the other ensemble members)? There would be conflict and guilt afterwards, because any romantic contact would still be illegal and a court-martialable offence, but the comfort and companionship might be too strong to resist.
+ Perhaps the camp is struck by a misplaced Allied raid, or an escape attempt has gone awry, and Preston needs to rescue one of these hapless gentlemen - - or, even more deliciously, finds himself in need of rescue? Or perhaps Preston needs to discipline Pat or Simon or one of the other men over some military infraction? Or the Kommandant needs to punish his Best Enemy, but he can't quite manage it, and Preston has to step in to assist?
+ Post-war, perhaps Pat or Simon or one of the others seeks Preston out - - then a lonely widower trying to raise two small boys on his lonesome. What would that bittersweet post-series future happiness in post-war Britain look like for them?
Request 2
Fandom: Enemy at the Door (TV)
Characters: Richter
DNWs: Onscreen Character Death, Permanent Injury/Mutilation (or offscreen, for Richter or Philip), Underage, Character/Ship Bashing or bashing of spouses, Dark Richter or Dark Philip, Nazi apologism, Unrequested non-canon sexuality/gender/race/identity Headcanons, Sex Changes.
Background:
Enemy at the Door (TV) is a British TV show that ran from 1978 – 1980, and is about the German occupation of the Channel Islands during WW2. This show is so great, in terms of setting and historicity, and also its writing, which excellently portrays the balance of power and fragile harmony between the islanders and the German occupying forces.
The show centres around Dr Philip Martel (Dr Who stalwart Bernard Horsfall), a member of the Guernsey Controlling Committee, and Major Dieter Richter (the late, great Alfred Burke), the commander of the German occupying forces, as well as a sterling ensemble cast that includes Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Anthony Stewart Head in his first TV role. It’s a historical war drama that explores conflict and patriotism and enemies forced to live in close contact with each other, telling its characters’ stories in nuanced character arcs that spans the two seasons, and dealing with ethical dilemmas and slice-of-life events in complex, moral shades of grey.
The above is the Talking Pictures 2020 trailer, but it’s this excellent fanvid by lostspook1 that really captures the thoughtful, melancholy atmosphere of the show;
thisbluespirit has a fandom manifesto here (both linked to with thanks).Resources:
All 26 of its episodes are available on Amazon Prime, as well as on archive.org.
Here is a useful resource that includes a DVD quality review, episode summaries, and lists of cast and crew.
Madeleine Bunting’s The Model Occupation: The Channel Islands Under German Rule, 1940-1945 is a balanced and fairly non-apologist account of the occupation.
Character:
Dieter Richter, played by ascetic, saintly-faced Alfie Burke. Richter is the urbane Kommandant of the island of Guernsey, who was a professor of philosophy in peacetime. Richter is very much a military commander - - he takes decisive actions, eg in court-martialling the young soldier whom one of the islanders accuses of rape, and having him executed by firing squad - - but at the same time he does try to mitigate the hardships of the occupation for the islanders. He’s also morally conflicted about the atrocities of the regime; unfortunately, not sufficiently to do enough about it (when confronted in S2E3, he tells Dr Martel, “Whatever may be the abuse of man, that is the use of nature: first survive”).
Prompts - - Gen
Although Richter is my favourite, and I would love a missing scene or character study of him before, during or after the war, I'm very interested in this historical period and place, and would equally love a story that makes use of the cast and setting: future fic, backstories, missing scenes, vignettes or whole plotty episodes. Some ideas:
+ A scene from the Season 3 canon never gave us, post the Season 2 finale in April 1943. For instance, as the war progressed, the Channel Islands found themselves ignored and Guernseyans faced tremendous deprivations - - how would Richter and his men have addressed this situation? In July 1944, the von Stauffenberg assassination and coup attempt failed; as part of the aforementioned plot, von Stülpnagel, the military governor of occupied France, managed to arrest most of the SS commanders in the Paris garrison. What, if anything, would Richter and his men have done about Reinicke, the SS attache attached to their command?
+ Also in July 1944, fanatical Admiral Huffmeier arrived in Guernsey and was shortly promoted to Channel Islands commander. What would Richter (and Reinicke) done about this lunatic, who refused to surrender the Channel Islands to the Allied forces even though Germany had surrendered, and how would they have negotiated the last difficult lead-up to V-day?
+ Richter has so many great, conflict-ridden interactions with the islanders that tread the line between respectful and coercive (as Olive says, “When is it not just survival? When does it become helping the enemy?”). I’d love to see him taking tea with Olive Martel, or calling on Helen Porteous, or crossing swords with Peter Porteous; perhaps you might envision a social event to which the Martels invited Richter because they wanted to get something out of him, and vice versa.
+ Crossover with Colditz (TV)! Karl, Ullmann and/or Mohn come to visit Guernsey, or Preston, Pat and/or Simon are part of a British raid on the aircraft defence system on Sark. How would Richter and co. have reacted?
+ Bodyswaps: What kind of mayhem would ensue if Richter swapped bodies with Reinicke (and, in a prompt that belongs to the shipping section, they had to bang to switch back)? Or with General Muller? Or with Clive? (Not for nothing do I append this beautiful classic black-and-white photo of ASH in satin and lace <3)
+ Historical AUs: What if the Germans invaded Guernsey in WW1? Or during the Silesian wars, or the time of the Vikings? Would Richter have been a reluctant captain in Frederick the Great's army, or an even more reluctant Viking chieftain?
Prompts - - Shipping
The show doesn't sugar-coat, nor is it apologist for, the dark moral choices made by Richter or indeed the other Nazis or islanders on Guernsey, and I would be interested in all dark moral choices and fraught non/dubious consent shippy scenarios, with Philip Martel, with Reinicke, and really anyone else in the cast, which would involve Richter suffering stoically and being wracked by guilt.
+ Perhaps Richter was unexpectedly placed in harm’s way by enemy action or his own side? Dr Martel would clearly be the only man whom he could rely on to administer both medical and non-medical treatment. Or Richter finds himself compelled as part of his duties to subjugate one of the islanders in all senses of the term, and Martel is the only one he can bear to inflict himself on? Or in an even darker version of events, after V-Day, the islanders brand Martel a collaborator, and force him to punish Richter as a sign of loyalty?
+ Alternatively, I would be delighted with these gentlemen bickering over radio requisitions, or risking their lives/their careers to rescue each other (Martel from the terrible SS a la Judgement of Solomon or Richter from a POW internment in a terrible Soviet gulag), or sharing a romantic breakfast of ersatz coffee at the Kommandantur or the Hotel Normandie. (Please deal with Anna and Olive respectfully in the manner you think best -- perhaps Olive is all for her husband's uncomfortable closeness with the Kommandant, or perhaps she's decided to pack it in and leave Philip for That Nice Doctor Forbes.)
+ Richter is definitely the sort of commanding officer who would wearily do his duty when one of his senior officers was imperilled or captured in a commando raid or by the Resistance, even if that officer was Reinicke. They hate each other rather cordially, and though Reinicke is a stickler for military hierarchy, he is also a terrible troll; the fact that both of them are at such ideological odds with each other, and would hate this situation equally, is part of its draw.
Request 3
Fandom: Public Eye (TV)
Character: Frank Marker, Helen Mortimer
DNWs: Character Death, Underage, Character/Ship Bashing (except for Denis, you can bash him freely), Dark Frank or Dark Helen, Unrequested non-canon sexuality/gender/race/identity Headcanons, Sex Changes, Permanent Injury/Mutilation.
Background:
Public Eye (TV) is a British TV show that ran for seven seasons, from 1965-1975, and is about a private enquiry agent who did actually realistic private investigative work - - debt collections, gathering evidence for divorce cases, bankruptcies, employee due diligence, etc - - in a far cry from the glamorous life of private detectives in the Magnum P.I. mould who solved cases with their fists and always got their man.
Public Eye’s first three seasons are mostly lost, with only five early episodes remaining; the production values are what you’d expect from the time period; much of it is incredibly slow-moving - - but in spite of those drawbacks, the show is so, so great. It focused on the mundane problems in the ordinary, quotidian lives of ordinary people, and somehow made those ordinary lives and hopes and tragedies extraordinary.
The show largely owes its success to its writing, and its main character. Frank Marker is a deeply decent, fallible working-class chap who charges an unassuming 6.50 a day plus expenses (when the going rate is more like 6 pounds an hour). Frank occasionally failed to solve cases, refused to charge needy clients more than what they could pay, occasionally got thumped for his trouble, and was famously sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit - - which allowed the show to put on an experimental Season 4 (set in Brighton where Frank serves out his probation, meets Helen Mortimer, and slowly reintegrates into public life), a mini-series of seven stellar serialised episodes.
It also owes its success to its leading man, the incomparable Alfred Burke, who would go on to star as Dieter Richter in Enemy at the Door. Burke was a master at making the ordinary extraordinary; his Marker was a tour de force, a character like no other, an everyman whom the British public took to their hearts.
Resources:
All 51 of its surviving episodes are available on DVD. The five recovered early episodes plus Season 4 are on a private playlist (courtesy of lostspook1). Seasons 5 to 7 are here on Youtube, though there are a couple of episodes missing.
Here are episode summaries and reviews for Season 4, and here is a comprehensive series guide including lists of cast and crew, a series production history, and interviews with Burke and the showrunner Michael Chapman.
Characters:
Down-at-heel Frank had a strong sense of decency and principle; he didn’t enjoy most of the grimy aspects of his business, for all that he was good at his work, but he did it because he wanted to help people. He was, however, an intensely private person who hated to rely on others for help; he had no close friends and, in a departure from the noir detective cliché, he wasn’t a womaniser; in fact, he had no on-screen flings in all his seven seasons, let alone a proper romance.
The person who got the closest to Frank in all seven seasons was Helen Mortimer. In the Season 4 opener “Welcome to Brighton?”, he arrived on the doorstep of Helen’s boarding house in Brighton, wary and broken by his prison experiences; like Frank, she had a penchant for helping people (she provided halfway-house services to ex-convicts on probation), and she took him under her wing. They bonded when he was falsely accused of workplace theft in S4E3; she accompanied him on a stake-out that wasn’t a date in S4E6; her no-good deserting husband Denis showed up again in S4E7 and she showed him the door.
… and then in S5E1’s A Mug Named Frank,
Helen did however make a return to visit Frank in Windsor for an episode in each of the following two seasons afterwards (S6E10 It’s A Woman’s Privilege and S7E2’s How About A Cup of Tea).
Here is a shipping fanvid courtesy of lostspook1; like this pairing, it will charm you and break your heart.
Prompts - - Gen:
I am aware that Yuletide matching is and, but I would also enjoy a fic for either of these two characters: future fic, backstories, character studies, missing scenes, vignettes or whole plotty episodes. Some prompts:
+ Case fic: any tiny mundane case would make me so happy - - true to canon, it doesn’t have to contain much action or adventure, and could be as serious or as cracky as you like. I’m endlessly charmed by Frank being bemused by how the other half lives, and love his dynamic with Percy. Maybe Helen Mortimer gets to solve a case when Frank happens to be away?
+ Future fic: I have always wanted to see how Shirley in S4E4’s My Life’s My Own turns out. Maybe she comes back to Brighton to look for Frank and meets Helen for the first time? Or brave, tragic Rose Mason in S5E6’s Come into the Garden, Rose: maybe she takes Frank out for tea and gives him a new perspective on his solitary lifestyle.
+ Crossover: as aforenoted, Frank and Richter are played by the same actor. In S4E3, Frank gives his birth year as 1923, which makes him young enough to be Richter’s son. Richter spent six years in Cambridge after the Great War; what if he had a liaison with Frank’s mother there and left without knowing she was in the family way? Frank would have been eighteen in 1941; according to the PE tie-in novel, he served in the merchant Navy in WW2 - - would he have encountered the Guernsey Kommandant, or been captured and sent to Colditz?
+ Bodyswaps: What kind of mayhem would ensue if Frank swapped bodies with Helen (and, in a prompt that belongs to the shipping section, they had to bang to switch back)? Or with Percy? With Vyvyan Reveldale?
+ Historical AUs: What if Frank ran a dodgy detective agency in the 1940s instead, or in Victorian times (he would so be the anti-Sherlock Holmes, with Percy as Not Inspector Lestrade!)? What if he was a holistic investigator, like Dirk Gently?
Prompts - - Shipping:
I confess to shipping it, intensely, and would be thrilled to receive a shippy fic for them, particularly as they never get together in canon (and didn’t get the Season 8 which would, according to Roger Marshall in the S4 DVD set booklet, have seen Frank going back to Brighton and Helen). Some prompts:
+ Fix-it fic: It can be done, even though Frank is a solitary, self-contained, self-isolating character who doesn’t believe he deserves nice things. In fact, and Season Seven was building to it, with Frank starting to recognise that his unbearable loneliness was something he could in fact address if he allowed himself to let his guard down. Maybe it happens organically, with him growing weary of the perpetually-broke, physically-demanding life of an enquiry agent? Or it’s triggered by circumstances - - if Helen was in trouble, he’d rush to her side, and once he’s there he might fall under her spell again and decide to stay.
+ Non fix-it fic: she comes to look for him again or he goes to visit her, they spend the night together at last, and then he leaves her again, because he knows he’ll only drag her down and she deserves better…
+ Missing scene: they enjoy their cute not-date at the end of S4E6 so much that they go out to catch another show together? Or Frank feels badly after the way he rejects Helen in S7E2 and sends her a note of apology? I’d be delighted by fluffiness or bittersweetness or both these things at once.
+ Percy and Vyvyan: though Helen is Frank's one true love, I would also gleefully accept Frank and Percy hooking up drunkenly, or having to fake date for a case, or if criminals made them do it! I would also be thrilled if Frank found himself in similar straits with young Vyvyan, particularly since canon did give us the drunken hookup:
Helen would be very disapproving, but I would be delighted!
Request 4
Fandom: Political RPF - UK 20th-21st C
Character: Keir Starmer
DNWs: Character Death, Underage, Character Bashing, Dark Starmer, Unrequested non-canon sexuality/gender/race/identity Headcanons, Sex Changes, Permanent Injury/Mutilation, Tory Apologism.
Background:
Political RPF - UK 20th-21st C ought to be a British TV show; at any rate, its proceedings have been televised for the last 31 years. If it was a TV show, it would be such a great one, filled with drama and witty rhetoric and cutthroat deals being struck and people purporting to care about their country.
Alas, it is a reality of present political life. Perhaps shipping front-benchers or speculating on forbidden crossbench romance and idly imagining politicians engaging in corporal punishment and hatesex isn't the way most of us deal with the terrible uncertainties of real life post-Brexit Britain, but fandom does occasionally provide a strangely comforting outlet...
I ought to say that while I am interested in the politicking, I am agnostic to your actual politics and how you choose to write about it. That said, in the current climate, Tory (and in particular Boris) apologism isn’t going to go down at all well, so fair warning.
Resources:
The Parliamentary schedule and archives are here, together with a link to the Hansard transcript of Keir’s Parliamentary speeches, contributions and voting record.
Here is a link to Keir’s official CV and his bio on peoplepill.com; his New Statesman profile is here.
And here is Keir’s page at the Lolitics wiki, the celebrated fannish resource on British politics circa 2010 todate.
Character:
The former Director of Public Prosecutions and barrister at well-known criminal law and human rights set Doughty Street Chambers, Keir Starmer QC, now leader of the Labour Party. A working-class boy with a first class in Law from the University of Leeds, he earned his peerage prosecuting criminals and terrorists for Her Majesty’s Government, and entered politics relatively recently in 2015, taking the party by storm; after Jeremy Corbyn’s drubbing by Boris Johnson in the UK General Elections of 2019, he stepped up to take the helm. He was reportedly the inspiration for Bridget Jones' Mr Darcy.
His critics say he’s a throwback to the dark days of New Labour, and even more unforgivably, that he’s Boring. But he’s shown himself unafraid to tackle tough issues and make tough decisions. By many people’s lights, he’s shown himself to be the grown-up the squabbling, deeply divided Labour Party should listen to, and that, in these dark times, the nation needs.
(He owns a donkey sanctuary, and looks good in glitter.)
Prompts - - Gen:
I am an inveterate consumer of legal dramas, and would appreciate a vignette from Starmer’s time as a barrister and later Director of Public Prosecutions, which The Lawyer summarises here.
+ For instance, in 1996, when Starmer was a junior barrister, he acted for a pair of environmentalists who were sued by McDonald’s over a factsheet critical of the company. Starmer’s clients lost at first instance, but 2005 they won a landmark appeal in the European Court of Human Rights against the British government, on the basis that they had been denied a fair trial because of the lack of legal aid. Here’s the young barrister’s discussion of the case in 1996 and 2005, which might provide meaty gen legal drama fodder.
+ Harrison/Weatherill: I am also an admirer of Walter Harrison, the scrappy 1970s Labour Deputy Whip and Bernard "Jack" Weatherill, his decent, upright Tory counterpart, whose star-crossed 1970s Lolitics love story - - essentially, on the night in March 1979 that Callaghan’s Labour government fell, Jack offered to destroy his own career by abstaining from the critical confidence vote to honour a gentleman's agreement between them, and Walter refused to accept his sacrifice and chose to let the government go down instead - - was immortalised in James Graham's magnificent play This House. I decided it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to include them in this request and then tell my writer I would welcome an or match (which I do!), and I also thought there would be zero chance of a Lolitics match for these three characters so I decided to focus on Starmer, but you might be so inclined to write a crossover in which a present-day Starmer thinks back to this pivotal display of crossbench gallantry (maybe the ghosts of these Best Enemies haunt him in the House of Commons!), or a 17-year-old Starmer is on hand to witness Thatcher’s Conservatives stealing power that fateful night, and swears to do something about it when he grows up. Or, you know, feel free to write me something that focuses on Harrisill and has minimal (or zero) Starmer in it, because I love them so very much.
+ Historical AUs: What if Starmer and Miliband and the present shadow cabinet were suddenly transported to the 1970s and stood side by side with Harrison? Would they have been able to help stave off Maggie and the terrible deprivations of the Thatcher years? What if Starmer was Shadow PM during the prewar years, or with Cromwell in Tudor times?
+ Bodyswaps: What kind of mayhem would ensue if Starmer swapped bodies with Miliband (and, in a prompt that belongs to the shipping section, they had to bang to switch back)? Or, God help him, with Boris?
Prompts - - Shipping:
The vaste swathe of the British public, not to mention the wider world, broadly consider UK politics to be deadly dull, but to the Lolitics consumer it’s anything but. We envision the fandom's characters and pairings as fascinating people with thrilling (and fictitious-but-not- unlikely!) inner lives, kinks, and desires. We imagine them constantly stabbing each other in the back or the front, while reneging on electoral promises or selling each other out to the press, and occasionally while engaging in political bed-fellowing or hatesex or forbidden crossbench romances.
For Keir Starmer the character, who has hung up his shingle on being the grown-up in the Labour camp, I don’t see why he shouldn’t take up politics’ mantle as Daddy Starmer. British politics has always had a line in discipline (boarding school practices aside, there’s the received wisdom that the party whips don’t just whip votes, et cetera). Besides, under that earnest, blandly handsome exterior lies the mind of a forensic litigator with a nose for the kill and a willingness to get his hands dirty in order to get the job done. His predecessor would never have spanked anyone for the good of the British people or the Labour party, but Daddy Starmer would, in spades.
+ I would really be happy for him to discipline any of his fellow politicians, though no one deserves a spanking more than my perennial favourite political RPF character, David Cameron, who will go down in infamy as the man responsible for the utter catastrophe of Brexit. Again, Jeremy Corbyn would never have done it, but Daddy Starmer would be just the man for the job.
+ Starmer brought back Ed Miliband, the man who recruited him into politics in 2013, and whose soft-left politics resemble his own. Had Miliband led the Labour party to victory rather than catastrophic election defeat in 2015, Starmer would likely have joined his Cabinet. In the event, post-defeat, Miliband went off to see friends in Australia, growing a beard and reflecting on his failure. Now he’s back, and has used to being the top dog; you’d imagine it would be no simple task for Daddy Starmer to bring him to heel and ensure his loyalty. Feel free to go in any direction your heart takes you, whether it’s flowers and charm and candlelit dinners, or via all the available disciplinary items in the Labour Whips’ offices, or both.
+ One might however imagine that even Daddy Starmer would hesitate at the prospect of spanking Granddaddy Tony, even though TB has been quite complimentary. As such, I’d expect Starmer would first try the candlelit dinner route with him, as well as the older members of this Lolitics tagset. (According to the New Statesman, he took a similar approach 2013, wherein ”he wooed members individually, over coffees and lunches (he organised early and was handsomely funded)”!)
+ Except for Ed Balls; I would derive immense enjoyment from seeing Starmer tango with Balls. Hey, we know Starmer’s very partial to glitter; he might be up for sticking a rose between his teeth as well.
Thank you again for creating for me, and I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with this Yuletide!
