Queering the Tide 2025

[isabrella]

There are many ways of queering texts and characters. This challenge is for any and all of them! The widest possible definition of queering is used here. If you think your prompt counts, then so do we.

To participate, leave a comment on this post linking to your letter, so anyone interested in queering your canon for Yuletide can find you. Tag any fics for this mini-challenge with Queering The Tide. (I suggest you tag both Queering the Tide and TransTide if the two happen to overlap.)

You can copy/paste this form below for your comment.

<strong>AO3 name:</strong>

<strong>Letter link:</strong>

<strong>Fandom: </strong>

<strong>Any specific fandom details, preferences, comments, etc:</strong>

Text copied from the 2024 post.

Comments

[beatrice_otter]

AO3 name: Beatrice_Otter
Letter link: https://beatrice-otter.dreamwidth.org/2025/10/19/
Fandom: Oh My General, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Peter Wimsey
Any specific fandom details, preferences, comments, etc:
Oh My General: there's so much gender anxiety going on there, it'd be great to see it explored more fully.

Bruce Springsteen: look, they were going gay interracial kisses on stage in the 70s and 80s. I could go for slash, queerplatonic relationship, or complete gen, as long as the two are important to each other.

Prompts: the story of their first meeting is kind of mythologized by now (it's in two songs, plus lots of interviews!), another retelling of it would be great. Or an AU where Clarence wasn't in that car accident and went into the NFL and they still became close. Or an angsty fic about how they're in love but too afraid to add "living together openly as interracial queers" to "interracial queer kiss on stage." Or fluffy slice of life with the two of them together, either on tour or between tours. Or a fic where they're each the emotional center of the other's life, but they both have relationships with other people, too. (Please make it polyamory and not cheating.) Or a fic that's all about them Challenging Racism And Homophobia Together

Peter Wimsey:
Charles/Peter
Is Charles really okay with Peter leaving him with all the footwork all the time? Is there ever a time when Peter is wrong and Charles is right? Peter went to a boys' school, and situational homosexuality is a thing, besides his general cosmopolitanness; does Charles have more problem with it than Peter does? They are both such deeply principled men, and they have the principles of their class and time; does "living in sin" bother them?

Bunter/Harriet/Peter
I absolutely cannot buy that Peter and Harriet's relationship would go the same way if he was in a pre-existing relationship with Bunter. Bunter is not like his mistresses, which bring mutual pleasure and enjoyment but have little real depth of feeling and are largely separate from his day-to-day life; Peter depends on Bunter for his healing and sanity. There are "jokes" in canon about how Bunter is basically his wife. It is an extremely important relationship to Peter, and I can't see sex making that less important. So he would not immediately propose in a jail cell, because he's basically already married and there would have to be a lot of negotiation before things went forward with Harriet. (When he visits Sylvia and Eiluned is he sounding them out discreetly as to how okay she is with gay men and threesomes?) There are so many points along their courtship and relationship where things would have changed based on that. I'd love to see them explored. Or you could have P/B not be pre-existing, and something about Harriet changes the dynamic enough that they have a belated relationship and end up in a triad where Harriet is the pre-existing partner? Or maybe a true menage a trois?

Mervyn Bunter/Peter Wimsey (Peter Wimsey)
When do they get together? During the war? After it? How does it affect their cases, and their social circle? Who knows about it (Bunter's mother? The Dowager Duchess? Charles Parker?)? How do they navigate the issues of Peter's fluctuating mental health? How does it affect their cases?