#wait also...i spent literal years waiting slash hoping for a paul martin/james neal sequel to thou and you

[ultrasofts]

How about a f1/bridgerton AU - any thoughts or headcanons?

hello!! i’m so sorry this took me so long to get to. and apparently i have more thoughts on this than i expected...

tbh i find it quite hard to put f1 into a bridgerton au — partly because i’m not so inclined towards AUs with this fandom, and partly because the specificity of a bridgerton au (which is actually the only kind of regency au i would be even remotely interested in for this fandom) feels quite constraining and, if i’m honest, a bit ridiculous contrasted with the way f1 is.

but! that said, here are the minor thoughts i’ve had.

i feel like seb/lewis suits the sort of au where they are friends who love to annoy each other and be extremely competitive. lewis is the eternal bachelor that all the mamas of the ton love to throw their daughters at, and he is always very kind and nice to them but it never goes even the slightest bit further than that, not since the much-talked-about end to his engagement to miss nicole scherzinger. sebastian is definitely not jealous of any of this and definitely doesn’t escalate every interaction they have to ridiculous levels to try and get and hold lewis’s attention. lewis is mostly perplexed by this.

seb/mark feels like the natural fit for a kathony style enemies-to-lovers type beat, mostly because i think, deep down, they’re more similar than their superficial differences suggest. I think mark actually fits better in the kate-type role because even though he’s an exact fit for how much of an “insider” anthony is (mark is like…everything old school f1 men love imo), he was never the Chosen One at rb. seb actually fits better in the edwina role now that i think about it. hmm. much to think on.

charles/seb doesn’t work for me in any specific shoehorning into a bridgerton storyline but as i have prev said to @marioandretti, they’re perfect for a jane austen’s emma-style au. not so much because of the age difference as the vibe of  "i love you even though you're an absolute nightmare" and “i love you even though you disapprove of everything i do”. emma is my favourite austen novel, despite and honestly because of how ridiculous and unbearable emma is as a person, and really? peak charles vibes.

the main thing for me when it comes to regency aus, especially in the style of bridgerton, is….you have to lay on the pining and ust. that’s the only reason i’m here. there has to be ust so thick it makes me want to scream. the whole appeal of the genre for me is the passion that is hyper constrained by society, and the meaning and desire that is therefore subsumed into the smallest of touches. 

bridgerton season 2 delivered this in spades, while, crucially, also giving both an actual reason why these two characters can’t be together outside of that, and real, internal conflicts  for both of them that had nothing to do with the other person but had a huge impact on the way they interact. (god i wish we’d gotten to see and hear more about kate’s relationship with her father though.)

in fic land, my fave regency(ish) au of all time is thou and you by twentysomething. tbh it doens’t deliver any of the conflict that i love, but the ust is so deliciously drawn. it’s also a magic au which honestly makes me think of jonathan strange and mr norrell in ways that don’t actually make any sense, even though the author cites patricia c. wrede, whose books i did love growing up, as  inspiration. i also did really enjoyed the novel the gentlemen’s guide to vice and virtue, even if there was a little too much of the protagonist just being an idiot and people not talking it out for my taste.

ok these thoughts got long i’m sorry!!

#actually i have a lot of thoughts about how jane austen's novels are firmly outside this genre and i get annoyed when people conflate them #not unlike i have here! #but that's for another time #asks #rpf tag #wait also...i spent literal years waiting slash hoping for a paul martin/james neal sequel to thou and you #still holding out hope if i'm honest #ladybugmind