regshoe

Dear Creator,

Thank you for writing me a fic for one of these lovely fandoms! I'm

regshoe on AO3. My requested freeform tags are a mixture of more plotty ones that inspired particular prompt ideas, and smaller, more general hurt/comfort elements that I'd just love to see in any story about these pairings. So feel free to use these however you like—I'd be equally delighted with a story based on one of the more definite prompts, or another idea you have that features any of my requested freeforms, or a combination of these.

I love hurt/comfort! What I really love about hurt/comfort is how it can reveal characters' emotions—either to another character, or to the character themselves who perhaps hasn't understood or allowed themselves to admit to their own feelings—and break down barriers between characters. I love characters seeing the person they love hurt and realising how much they care about them, or revealing their feelings in how they react, and characters realising how much they're loved through receiving comfort or through the other character's response to their own comfort.

Some general likes: A strong sense of place; relationships between characters and places; descriptions of nature; birds; historical detail.

Shippy likes:
—Characters finding comfort and a sense of rest in each other, especially amidst a hostile world or plot-related struggles; a sense that the characters are 'each other's people'
—Loyalty: characters who are unfailingly loyal to each other; characters facing conflicting loyalties, or struggling to choose between their existing loyalties and their feelings for another character
—Characters who are emotionally closed-off, defensively cynical after getting hurt in the past, a little too self-reliant, etc., opening up emotionally as they slowly come to trust another character. Learning to love, and learning to be loved
—Quietly significant physical intimacy: handholding, long hugs, cuddling, hair-stroking, that thing where one character sits in a chair and the other curls up on the floor and rests their head on the first character's knee

Do Not Wants: Graphic violence or body horror; explicit sex (implied/fade-to-black is fine); rape; AUs that place the characters in a different setting (canon divergence is fine, as is adding supernatural/fantasy elements to a mundane canon setting); infidelity; poly ships that add unrequested characters to my requested ships

A note: I realise several of the characters here are in canon ships that conflict with the ones I'm requesting. I would rather not receive either infidelity or unrequested poly ships, but otherwise deal with canon love interests however you like—ignore them entirely, say they were only ever friends, say they broke up, kill them off offstage, etc.

All requests are for fic. I have gifting turned on and am open to treats.

Flight of the Heron - D. K. Broster
Ewen Cameron/Keith Windham (hurt Keith), Ewen Cameron/Keith Windham (hurt Ewen)

Aftermath of Duel. I'm sure either Keith or Ewen would love to get a chance to fight Major Guthrie! If one of them did, but was injured in the process, it'd be a lovely opportunity for the other to take care of him. Or perhaps the duel is between Keith and Ewen, while they're still enemies—but whichever of them wins is remorseful and horrified at inflicting injury on the loser, and decides to comfort him instead!

Career Ending Injuries. Keith's army career is such an interesting part of his character: he takes his duty and honour as an officer very seriously, of course, and military ambition is his one passion in life, but he's horrified at the atrocities committed by the Army after Culloden, and what we're told about his backstory suggests that he was pushed into the career he has by the chance circumstances of his mum's connections, and perhaps wouldn't have chosen it (at least in the specifics) for himself. So what if this interestingly ambivalent relationship was disrupted, not only by seeing how bad the conduct of the Army and his fellow officers can get, not only by his relationship with Ewen, but also by an injury that put an end to his career for good? How would Keith feel about it; how would he adjust; and how would Ewen take care of him as he did so?

Character A wraps Character B gently in their coat. Both Keith's and Ewen's coats—I'm counting a plaid as a coat here—are so symbolic of their opposite allegiances; this could be both very sweet and an opportunity for more significant thematic meaning.

Character isn't used to being loved and shown tenderness/affection. Poor Keith; I'm sure Ewen's comfort can make up for all those years starving yourself of affection...

Comforter reads to hurt character. The books he owns are one of the first things that surprises Keith about Ewen; what books might they enjoy together?

Comforting character is in denial about attraction to other character. I love Keith's abilities for denial, including in desperate hurt/comfort situations; what if such a situation finally pushed him into admitting it...?

Fix-it - Character survives canonical death. Of course he does! But perhaps, instead of being killed, Keith is injured, and Ewen has to take care of him. How does Ewen manage to balance comforting Keith with his own urgent necessity of escaping from Scotland, and how does Keith deal with the situation? Or perhaps it's Ewen who gets hurt, protecting Keith from the murderous Lachlan, and Keith has to take care of him—no doubt facing his own conflicts of duty along the way.

Forehead kisses for comfort. And not just after he's dead!

Soldier having trouble readjusting after the war. Both characters are soldiers, of course, but in very different ways—Keith is a career soldier while Ewen joins the Jacobite Army to fight in the Rising—and that could make for an interesting hurt/comfort situation here. I can imagine Ewen struggling to readjust to civilian life—in exile, and when he returns to Ardroy—after a year of fighting, injury and captivity; how might Keith, for whom such things have been his normal life for years, comfort Ewen?

Jill - E. A. Dillwyn
Gilbertina "Jill" Trecastle/Kitty Mervyn (hurt Jill), Gilbertina "Jill" Trecastle/Kitty Mervyn (hurt Kitty)

Both Captured - Forced to Work Together to Escape. This happens in canon, of course, but I feel that canon doesn't make the most of either the femslash or the hurt/comfort opportunities presented by the situation! So what if their escape from the penitenciers didn't go so smoothly? Perhaps one of them is badly wounded while making her way out of the chapelle, and, unable to walk back to the road, they end up stranded together. Or perhaps the dastardly César and Napoleon take them to that cave instead of the chapelle after all, and they have an even more perilous and exciting escape.

Brushing a character's hair as comfort. I feel this would work especially well with long Victorian women's hair!

Character A discovers things about Character B that change their negative opinion of them. When Kitty learns about Jill's faked character, Jill very nearly tells her the entire story of her history and why she did what she did—in fact, she would have done if Kitty had given her any indication that she 'cared about me one little bit'. What an opportunity for canon divergence! What would happen if Kitty did somehow find out about Jill's past, either through Jill making that confession or otherwise? If Kitty had to care for a hurt Jill—or if she was herself comforted by Jill, who would surely demonstrate the depth of her own feelings for Kitty through caring for her—while knowing the truth about her and probably having conflicted feelings over the whole thing, how might her opinions change, and what would it mean for their relationship?

Character B nurses Character A during their convalescence. This is a Victorian novel, after all! Perhaps the strong, proud and upright Kitty is taken ill—in London, or on her travels (in a remote location, where they don't even butter their toast and there are surely no doctors...!)—and Jill turns from travelling-maid to nurse and takes care of her during her illness and convalescence. Or perhaps it's Jill who falls ill, and their roles are reversed as Kitty has to look after her maid.

Character isn't used to being loved and shown tenderness/affection. Jill prides herself on not caring for anyone, but Kitty is clearly a bit of an exception to this—how might she react to Kitty returning her affections through comforting her while she's hurt?

A confession during a desperate situation has to be dealt with later. All this peril they get into on their travel adventures could lead Jill to forget her resolve to ignore her feelings for Kitty...

Helping hurt character to dress/undress. One character being the other's maid surely provides opportunities for this!

Prickly Relationship Between Comforter and Comfortee. Due to both characters' pride and emotional independence, and potentially to Kitty knowing about Jill's faked reference—how might that interact with their care and deeper feelings for each other in a hurt/comfort situation?

Stranded in the wilderness. Jill and Kitty continuing their travels after their return from Corsica would surely present many opportunities for hurt/comfort situations! Send them off to whatever remote, far-flung corner of the world takes your fancy, and then perhaps they get lost—and one of them is hurt...

John Halifax, Gentleman - Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
John Halifax/Phineas Fletcher (hurt John), John Halifax/Phineas Fletcher (hurt Phineas)

B is comforted by A while pining. Oh dear, poor Phineas. His devoted pining, with all the insistence that of course it's right and natural that he can't ever mean as much to John as John means to him—that of course John should go and get married and meanwhile he can't ever have such happiness—really breaks my heart. And pining and hurt/comfort are a perfect combination... And what about John in this scenario? Of course he cares for Phineas when he's hurt, and perhaps he gets a bit impatient (as he does in canon) over Phineas's self-sacrificing attitude; but perhaps comforting him leads John to realise the depth of his own feelings.

Bedside Vigils. All that lovely, earnest nineteenth-century sentimental devotion...

Catching Ill from Rough Weather. The perfect hurt/comfort scenario for a brick-length Victorian novel! In canon John gets anxious about taking Phineas out in the rain, delicate as he is—but if these worries were proved well-founded, I'm sure John would do everything in his power to take care of Phineas in his illness. Or perhaps John, picture of health that he is, bravely pushes on through the cold wind and rain while doing something incredibly important/heroic/historically significant, and ends up paying a price for his recklessness—and so their usual roles are reversed as Phineas now has to be the one taking care of him. Either way, this is surely an opportunity for much tender, devoted comforting and realisation/expression of deep feelings.

Character B nurses Character A during their convalescence. I love how caring John is in canon during Phineas's recurring attacks of illness, and how Phineas is cheered up by his mere presence ('he was life and health to me, with his brave cheerfulness'). Canon, however, neither goes into detail on the hurt/comfort nor takes the slashy opportunities of this scenario, and so I'd love a story in which John comforts Phineas during his convalescence from one such bout of illness—with perhaps deeper consequences for their relationship.

Character is Exhausted from Overwork. It's not easy being a symbol of the industrial development of proto-Victorian Britain and model of its work ethic, after all! What with the tanning-yard, the mills, the experiments in steam power and so on, the punishing workload poor John takes on himself must get a bit much even for him at times—but I'm sure Phineas will be there to take good care of him when it does.

Comforter reads to hurt character. John and Phineas bond over books and read to each other early in their friendship, and I'm sure they'd both think of books as a good means of comfort in times of pain and illness. Perhaps one of them brings out an old favourite book as the perfect thing to make the other feel better (though, of course, what really makes him feel better is the person reading it, and the love shown through the gesture...).

Forehead kisses for comfort. I can't get enough of little tender, affectionate gestures between these two—and even better if it's in a deadly serious hurt/comfort situation where small gestures communicate worlds of feeling.

Holding hands with a sick/injured character. And I love significant handholding too...

Sharing a bed to keep a close eye on hurt character's well-being and needs. It's very important!