The 12th century came from my obsession with Robin Hood and outlaw stories as a kid. I loved the Disney Robin Hood movie and the Kevin Costner movie - was absolutely smitten with Sean Connery as Richard back then. Then when I was in high school, I was gifted from a teacher "1215: The Year of the Magna Carta" and it just snowballed from there. That year, the same teacher had us do a performance of The Lion in Winter for our small stage show and that just took off for me. I was already writing RPF for The Lord of the Rings movies and for soccer, so it wasn't that much of a stretch for me, especially after seeing the film version of the Lion in Winter during preproduction. I ended up going to university for a history degree and studied women in the 12th century under a fantastic advisor and doing work on the mistresses of Henry II. I was firmly a Philip girlie in high school but during my research for university, that is when I really fell in love with John and Henry III. The 12th and 13th centuries for me are just the perfect in-between space - we know just enough about the personalities and behaviors of the people involved in the events to feel like we could know them, but also their world view is so ancient and alien that they aren't quite Like Us. There's something very romantic and exciting to me about a period where you know so much and yet can't one-for-one experience what it was like for them to be really alive. Today the middle ages is a lot of things for me, including obviously a big inspiration for rpf and smutty bits and pieces, but I'm also fascinated from a work standpoint on the accessibility of legal services for the poor and how our ideas about the rights of the poor develop out of the 12th century (and especially from John's reign).

With the exception of his funeral effigy, we have a couple comments from chroniclers. We know from examination of his remains that he was between 5'5" and 5'7", on the shorter side of average for his period. Gerald of Wales says that John (and Geoffrey) were both "a little below middle height" but "well-shaped enough". He also describes in the stories about Ireland that John had a fashioned close-cropped beard, as opposed to the long bears of the Irish lords. (Gerald then goes on about how John is a silly little rich boy and I totally recommend reading his descriptions of the sons of Henry II, they are beautiful.) John is also said to have favored in appearance the count of Poitou - so that could be Richard or maybe his grandfather, William IX. Either way, probably means he had red hair and maybe it was curly. I remember reading somewhere and I'd have to grab the source later that suggested that little Henry's droopy eyes came from John, but I don't think I've ever seen any comment on that in passages actually about John written while he was alive. There have been suggestions that Matthew Paris may have actually seen and interacted with John while he was King and that the illustration of Paris might be a truer-to-life illustration of him - here's a link to the National Archives scan of the image (https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/magna-carta/king-john-by-matthew-paris/) I really like this portrait and I want to believe the suggestion that this is as close as we get to the real John.

My standard answer (that we will never know and that's okay) is probably not what you're looking for? I think that the answer has to come in two parts when you follow the evidence. The first one is whether Richard was sleeping with men as just a regular part of his sexual expression. It is my opinion that the evidence does lead to this, but I've also seen arguments that I found compelling that Richard was simply not interested in women, which doesn't mean that he was interested in men and could just mean that sex was not a very high priority for him. I think most evidence indicates that women and men were both part of Richard's experience. Richard's immediate circle was his knights and trusted mercenaries. As far as I know, we don't have names for mistresses or ladies that he kept around, except for his mother. Unlike Philip, who put aside his wife to take up with another woman, Richard puts aside his wife, ignores all advice to get an heir ASAP, and doesn't seem to "take up" with anyone that could be politely recorded in chronicles. There is also the story of Richard's "vice", which I personally find hard to believe was women exclusively - as we only know of one child (maybe two, depending on your "nephew/son Henry" theory of choice) and because sex outside of marriage wasn't punished in this way for an unmarried king. There are stories of Richard's "lust for women" but they mostly seem to be in violent abduction and rape stories, which I think are different and come from a different place than genuine interest in women as a romantic object. There is a story that Richard demanding company on his deathbed, this elaborate orgy of women and his favorite companions, but I haven't found contemporary stories of this, only later 14th century stuff, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

Does this mean that Richard AND PHILIP specifically had a relationship? The story is better for sure if they did and I think it's our job as storytellers to explore that story. If you want to think of yourself as a historian, I think the burden is a little higher. The great quote that many use to imply Richard and Philip's relationship does (again, in my opinion) indicates more than just political schmoozing. Eating from the same plate and sleeping in the same bed is one thing - Henry II does it too - , but I do think the "loved him as his own soul" tagged on the end, is more telling than more conservative historians would like. I also think the extreme reaction that the two of them have to each other is more than just "you left me on Crusade" - refusing to be in the same room, rejecting communion because they hate the other person so much, sending John to bring messages because they won't see each other, trying to pay off the German emperor to keep Richard's ass in jail - these are all so forceful and feel really personal. John and Philip also had unfortunate political encounters, but they would still squirrel away and hash out treaties privately without all this dramatic show. And Philip's sex life wasn't something that should go without remark either - he was also a bit of weirdo and very extreme when it came to his personal, sexual relationships - see his wives, but also like.... Geoffrey maybe? I don't see why he wouldn't have been equally weird about a relationship with a man like Richard. I don't think it is without evidence to say that they may have had a little bit of situationship that was based on mutual personal and political interest. This isn't a YA romance novel - Richard wasn't trying to make them dual Kings of anything. Philip wasn't a politically naive uke who just wanted to be loved. If they slept together, it would surely have been with the full understanding of the crown ahead of the man. To extend the conversation a little further - Philip, I think, was very intrigued and excited by the Plantagenet boys as a whole - they lived a more boisterous life that he felt he couldn't have because of the Capetian ideal of sacral, steady monarchy with a very specific and important transition from father to son but I think he loved all four of them in their own turn and for different things. He was close with Henry and Geoff before their deaths, and I think there was some excitement in getting involved in Richard's succession crisis that also (if he played it right) would mean that he could extend France's reach. They had known (all of them) known each other their entire lives and that closeness is something that informs all the relationships between Philip and the Plantagenets. I think it's something that Philip regrets not having once John is dead. I think he struggles (and struggles to get Louis trained up) when it's just little Henry and a council that doesn't really know what their doing and who don't know him.

I think you mean like personal things? Things about his actual personality rather than events in his reign that I'm interested in? I'm very interested in the small things that we know about him, some of which feel absolutely bananas to know about a person that has been dead for 850 years, like that he and Isabella liked to play chess together. Or that John loved music, but wasn't specifically fond of troubadour songs. I like that he was a dog guy and made special provisions for his dogs almost everywhere that he travelled, sometimes paying more for their care and transport than for his and Isabella's. He told a lot of jokes and liked to play with puns. I like that he created a little traveling library for himself and that when there were legal challenges against him, he was in the room, doing research and writing alongside his lawyers, especially if the question was on church law and the Bible. I like that he took the time to learn English and sometimes sat as a judge for common people in his country, often siding against nobles and Normans in favor of Englishmen. I like that he seems to have really loved him illegitimate children and looked out for them and for their mothers. I don't think any of these things absolve him of his more violent behaviors especially later in his reign, but I think we know enough about him to understand why he always had a strong, loyal group beside him, even when the Barons War was looking Bad. I feel like he and Young Henry actually have a bit of a similar personality.

Very sexy idea for the yaoi and I'm ready to Talk About That Forever, but I wonder if you're talking about actual John?

In reality, I don't know that there is That much evidence for a hypersexual John? He is definitely busy and has a fair number of children - somewhere between 9 and 11 illegitimate children - and is criticized for having sex with the wives and daughters of barons (true or not? It's hard to tell), but I don't find Actual John to be described as that much more sexual than other kings of the period. Henry I is much more... prolific and John seems to have a spent a large part of his youth and early adulthood married to someone who he either wasn't sleeping with or who wasn't able to have children, so it doesn't totally surprise me that he was heavy on mistresses in the early part of his life. There is definitely that note that John would have rather spent the day in bed with his wife than fight for Normandy, but I don't really read that as John being inappropriately sexual, more that he unwilling or uninterested in participating in that particular defensive militarism. Of course, as the baby of the family and as someone who wasn't expected early on to be much more than a marriage pawn for his father, we know very very little about John's early life and I severely doubt that information about any particular inappropriate behaviors would have been chronicled? John was shuttled around to many a home in his early years and spent a lot of time in the house of Henry the Young King, in the presence of Henry's knights and tournament team. Henry's household skewed younger and rougher than the religious sisters and brothers of Fontevraud where toddler John was raised, so it wouldn't be out of the question for young John to have been exposed to a more raucous sort of lifestyle.

Crusader John is definitely still my dream project though I feel like I have very little to show for it at this time. I've written a lot but it's more like little paragraphs or thoughts or one-off scenes here and there and nothing coherent enough to share unfortunately.

I do have my own vague modern AU, where I try my hand at what personality characteristics I think would be the most central to them and would translate across period and space. I have a few ideas about just a What If Young Henry Lived AU, as well as a What If one of the boys really did switch with Alys to the French court and what that relationship with Philip would look like - whether Richard or John. I almost never consider that it would be anyone else.

One that is vaguely similar to Crusader John that I'd like to do some writing and thinking about it an age reversal for the Plantagenet brothers - John the Young King and little Henri Sens Terre - and how the differences in their personalities would change if their circumstances were swapped.

Sorry for not getting to your question - I'm just a very bad at checking this place! :/

It's hard to pick favorites because all of them have little bits and turns of phrase that I feel a certain pride in, but I felt very cozy and loved writing "two kings" (https://archiveofourown.org/works/52857073). My John birthday fic has a ton of my personal headcanons about John and Richard's relationship over a longer stroke of time, which was fun to imagine John at different ages and how he - a person I perceive a wanting and needing a lot of love and affection - copes with the medieval expectation that family is often apart and not that close (https://archiveofourown.org/works/52611931). And then of course, the Philip feet fic is just the story that keeps on giving for me - even I go back and read this one pretty often lol (https://archiveofourown.org/works/52358317).

My most popular fic (and popular is definitely relative) is my Blade/Yanqing story for Honkai Star Rail (https://archiveofourown.org/works/49205647). Much larger fandom and I think it's a ship that people were very intrigued by but not a lot of people actually wrote for. I'd love to write about them again, but I didn't love the way that part of the Honkai story turned out and it sort of turned me off writing more for that particular area of the game.