Thank you so much for the Becoming Strangers link! ♥

littlemoose actually planted the seeds of the concept when we were in Top Gear fandom together, twelve years ago; she requested a drabble where 'James arrives at the studio to discover he never actually existed', and my reaction was absolutely 'oh, wow, why is this not a widespread trope?'

(Just in case some detective ever tracks down this request on the FFXV kinkmeme and goes 'hey, you were clearly actually inspired by that': the requester was me!)