thrillingdetectivetales | Heavy Artillery Holiday Exchange 2021 Letter (Reply)

Hello, Anonymous Author!

If you've participated in any event I've run in HBO War fandom before, you've probably seen some iteration of this letter, which features a couple of general lists of my favorite tropes and my DNW’s for easy perusal, with fandom- and pairing-specific requests underneath.

YES-PLEASES

friends-to-lovers
getting together fic
didn’t know they were dating
fake/pretend relationships
werewolves/shapeshifter AUs
soulmate AUs
person questioning/figuring out their sexuality (whether vanilla “I never thought I wasn’t straight until now” all the way to “turns out I’m really into being sexually submissive in a very kinky way, who knew?”)
building queer communities
experienced characters showing inexperienced characters the ropes (metaphorically, or literally if you want to go the bondage route ;) )
character wrestling with their sexuality/religion
praise kink
d/s dynamics (not TPE)

DO-NOT-WANTS

major focus on character death
non-canon/unrequested character death in general
graphic depictions of torture/injury
A/B/O
pregnancy/mpreg
non-canon child characters/kidfic
scat/watersports
slave!fic
infidelity
treating female characters as villains/ malicious hindrances to queer male romance
infantilazation (including daddy kink)
pedophilia
explicit non-con/rape*
vore
fat-shaming
degrading dirty talk (i.e.: "You're a filthy little slut" etc.)
somnophilia/paralysis
necrophilia
modern AUs of period media
on-screen gay bashing (mention of past incidents/recovery from is fine)
human furniture
leather kink

It's also worth nothing that for Band of Brothers in particular, while I'm fine with Speirs being involved as a tertiary/background character, I would prefer he not be focused on as a main character. Most other stuff is fair game. If you have a question about a particular trope/kink/topic, I’m always open to answering questions.

*Dub-con, of the flavor where a character is unsure but willing to go with it, or like, sex-pollen/drunk/etc. variety is fine, so long as there's not explicit focus on someone feeling taken advantage of.

Alright! Now let’s get on the fandom specific requests, shall we? I’m pretty open to whatever at the end of the day, so long as enough legwork/worldbuilding/character development has been done to make me believe that a certain scenario would actually happen. (Spoiler alert: "enough," in this instance, can be pretty simple and hand-wavey.) Feel free to use the below as guidelines more than strict rules, with the caveat being that I really don't like modern AUs for any HBO War stuff. Period AUs that incorporate magic or other tropes are fine.

Band of Brothers
Ralph Spina/Eugene Roe or Ralph Spina/Babe Heffron: Honestly, Spina just needs more love in general. Would love to see he and Roe developing a relationship over the course of their medic training and dealing with the horrors of war, or Babe and Spina running into each other back in Philly and getting together. Just more Spina!

Buck Compton/Don Malarkey: I have a lot of feelings about how "macho tough guy" Buck tries to be and would love to see him discovering that he's queer when up against that pervasive, toxic mindset, though I'd prefer a happy ending for him. I feel like there are a lot of avenues one could go down here: Buck breaks down in Bastogne and Don keeps visiting him in the hospital whenever he can. Maybe they had a thing before he broke down and Buck was assuming it was just guys keeping each other company when there weren't fairer hands to be found, or maybe they weren't together beforehand but he falls for Don slowly over the course of these visits. Maybe Don goes back to Oregon but isn't doing so hot, and he remembers Buck talking up UCLA and transfers there when things go south with his fraternity. Maybe they're soul-mates and they find out when they meet at Toccoa but Buck isn't ready to admit it yet. (Doesn't stop him from looking after Don while they're out on the front lines, though.) I don't know, this one feels like pretty fertile soil, go nuts.

Babe Heffron/John Julian: Falling in love at Toccoa! Or maybe it takes them longer, and Babe doesn't realize how he feels about Julian until after he gets shot. (Obviously would prefer a "Julian lives" AU here.) Maybe they don't meet each other at all until Julian is in the hospital recovering from a high slug to the shoulder/throat and Babe is there recuperating from something else. Maybe Julian follows Babe back home to Philly. Maybe Babe follows him back to Sipsey. Maybe they decide they're in love and they don't go home at all but instead disappear to a more welcoming queer community in California or something. This pairing also seems like a prime opportunity for a Groundhog Day AU where Babe has to keep reliving Julian's death until he can fix it/prevent it/solve some interpersonal problem they've been having/etc.

Joe Liebgott/David Webster: Would love to see something post-war or AU for these boys. Maybe Web is an embedded reporter instead of a paratrooper. (I actually wouldn't mind a GK AU on this one, where it was more modern.) Maybe they write each other after the war and realize their aggressive hate-fucking was masking a much deeper emotional connection. Maybe they've been together for years and it's kind of an open secret in both their (supportive!) families, and they're attending each others' big extended holiday celebrations for the first time.

The Pacific
Robert Leckie/Bud "Runner" Conley: Pre-canon shenanigans when they're in training! (Lord knows Leckie got up to enough.) Or maybe after the war, Runner comes to where Leckie is to say hi and hang for a bit and he just...never leaves. Double points, in the latter instance, for supportive Vera. Maybe Leckie is a war correspondent who gets sent along with the H/2/1 mortar group and he and Runner fall in love. Maybe Leckie stops writing letters to Vera while he's on deployment and starts writing them to Runner instead, saying all of the things he wants to say to the other man, but can't. (Double points if Runner finds that bundle of letters and reads them and it turns out he feels the same.)

DeEtta Almon/Lena Riggi: Maybe they meet during some kind of crossover event pre-canon and have a sexy fling! Maybe they both go career military after the war is over and find each other that way! Maybe they're both out of the military but meet elsewhere and wind up bonding! I'm open to anything, really, I just think there need to be more lesbians in HBO War fandom.

Sid Phillips/Eugene Sledge/Mary Houston Phillips: I don't know, I just have a lot of feelings about Mary helping Sid find himself when he gets back from the war and the two of them seeing Sledge struggle through much of the same shit and taking it upon themselves to try and help him, too, only to slowly realize over the course of time that they're dating and have been for a WHILE.

Generation Kill
Nate Fick/Ray Person: I don't know, I just love their dynamic, okay? This is one of those fandoms where I tend to enjoy fantastical AUs. Like, a universe where shifters or vampires are real, or magic warfare, or curses, or soulmates. I would also really enjoy seeing these two get together post-deployment. I'm also very About an AU where Nate doesn't go into the military, or doesn't stay in as long as he does, and he and Ray meet when Ray is taking advantage of the GI Bill after his service to go to school and Nate winds up being his TA or something. I don't know, I just want Ray being his usual chaotic gremlin self and Nate playing the straight man to his whirlwind.

Since I'm moderating this exchange, I will know who you are and you will know who I am so please feel free to reach out to me with questions if you need clarification. There's no mystery for the wicked, I suppose, but I'm really looking forward to it anyway. Also, if you'd like to peek at any of the previous letters I've written for this and other exchanges (which will be more of the same you've seen here), you can check out my "letters to nonny" tag.

Happy writing!
-Tec