wintersday (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wintersday) wrote2021-01-07 12:54 pm
wintersday) wrote2021-01-07 12:54 pm
Entry tags:
Chocolate Box 2021 Letter
Dear Chocolatier,
First of all, thank you for writing for me! I love all my requested fandoms and ships, and I’m excited to read whatever you come up with. Prompts are intended as a source of inspiration, and if you’ve got an idea that doesn’t follow any of them, I encourage you to run with it. If your interpretation of any of the ships or characters differs from my own, I encourage you to write them as you like. Finally, feel free to take any of my likes as a prompt all on its own, even if I don’t mention anything about it in my fandom-specific prompts.
I love less common POVs and formats (for example, first person, second person, non-chronological, a series of linked drabbles), and I’d be happy with any rating from G to Explicit (including smut) and any tone from fluff to darkfic. I’m open to character death, graphic violence, and sad or bittersweet (but preferably not utterly hopeless) endings. I’m also open to crossovers among any of my requested fandoms. Also, while longer fic is great too, I really love shortfic, so don’t hesitate to write me something at or near the word limit.
Overall Likes: Sense of place or atmosphere ∙ Location-based horror or mystery (for example, abandoned ruins, strange landscapes, eldritch architecture) ∙ Worldbuilding, including the little mundane details of daily life in fictional places ∙ Introspection and small character-driven moments ∙ Slice of life ∙ Missing scenes ∙ Survival in difficult circumstances ∙ Small moments of peace in the midst of danger or hardship ∙ Food as a source of comfort or bonding, or as a way of showing affection ∙ Characters who are used to going without something (food, kindness, physical contact, a chance to rest, etc.) receiving it ∙ Uneasy alliances ∙ Gradually earned trust ∙ Unexpected mercy ∙ Redemption, including ways in which redemption is complicated or difficult ∙ Exploration of power dynamics and differentials, especially when neither character wants to hurt or take advantage of the other but there are social or external reasons for one to assume that the other might ∙ Characters fighting against doom, fate, and/or impossible odds, and maybe winning ∙ Defiance ∙ Courtliness and romantic gestures ∙ Loyalty kink ∙ AUs of the following types: canon-divergence, role swap, urban fantasy and/or futuristic fantasy, cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic ∙ Ghosts ∙ Vampires
NSFW likes: Character-focused sex ∙ Non-penetrative sex ∙ Body worship ∙ Xeno ∙ Hand-kink and/or glove-kink ∙ Clothing kink (for example, rich fabrics, soft or pleasant textures, outfits with emotional significance) ∙ Sensory play (for example, focus on textures or temperatures, sensory deprivation) ∙ Bathing or showering together ∙ Consensual but non-formal BDSM-related kinks (for example, bondage or impact play), not necessarily all at once ∙ Consensual voyeurism/exhibitionism ∙ Kink as something influenced by or used to explore a character’s not-necessarily-inherently-sexual fears, desires, or emotions ∙ Feel free to include kinks not listed here as long as they don’t show up in my DNWs.
Do Not Wants: Rape/non-con between requested pairings. Situational dubcon due to external forces (for example, ‘bad guys made them due it’) is totally fine. So is off-screen or non-graphic non-con by villainous characters as part of a rescue, escape, revenge, and/or hurt-comfort scenario ∙ Any sexual content involving characters aged 14 or under. Future-fic where they’re older is totally fine ∙ Contempt between requested pairings. There might be conflict, they might be adversaries, but there should be respect there ∙ Racekink ∙ Damage to teeth or fingernails. ∙ A/B/O. ∙ Rimming, anal fingering, or lots of focus on penetrative anal sex ∙ Watersports or scat ∙ Sounding ∙ Infantilization, age regression, and/or age-play ∙ Modern mundane AUs ∙ Pregnancy or fic with heavy focus on raising children, except where requested or canon-compliant ∙ Serious real world illness, except where canon-compliant (for example, Nux’s probably-cancer illness in Mad Max), and even then, I’d prefer no character death due to illness. Fictional illnesses (e.g., animescence, voidrot, space zombie plague) are totally fine, even as a major focus.
Fallen London
Fandom-Specific Likes: Canon-typical horror, wonder, humor, and Neathy weirdness ∙ Neathy worldbuilding, in London and outside it; traces of older cities, and glimpses of what else is out there besides the cities purchased by the Masters ∙ Dreams and dreamlike imagery; Parabola; cats and snakes ∙ The Devils, either as charming and dangerous evil or as morally complex and surprisingly sympathetic ∙ Underdog characters (e.g., the Urchins, the Rubberies, the Clay Men, the rats)
Fandom-Specific DNWs: Seeking Mr Eaten’s Name and anything connected to it, including Mr Candles and focus on Mr Veils’s psyche or backstory (including him as an obstacle to the Railway and/or the workers is fine). Note that I have no objections to the kind of dark subject matter explored in SMEN. I’s that specific storyline I DNW.
Notes:
- For the Player Character’s gender, male, female, and nonbinary are all welcome
- I’ve played several Exceptional Stories (and I’m willing to work from context for those I haven’t), as well as Sunless Sea and Skies, so anything in the Failbetter Cinematic Universe is welcome.
Furnace Ancona/Player Character
Things I like about this ship: Like many people, I was immediately taken with Furnace as a character and her interactions with the Player ∙ sometimes tense and challenging, sometimes grudgingly trusting, sometimes even friendly. I love sympathetic characters who absolutely will oppose the protagonist when they think it’s necessary, and Furnace is definitely one of those. I prefer a PC who’s firmly on the side of (or at the very least, sympathetic to) the workers, although they and Furnace may still have different goals and priorities, and I love the thought of Furnace starting out wary or outright suspicious ∙ for good reason! ∙ until the PC demonstrates that they can be trusted. And we see some of how that might happen in the game, but I’d love to see other smaller moments along the way, as part of a developing romance or just a shift from potential adversaries to allies.
Setting-wise, I’d love something set in that stretch of terrain the Railway passes through from London’s outskirts to Hell’s Hinterlands. There are so many interesting things happening there (strange flora and fauna, eerie woods and waterways, old battlefields, shifting and sometimes sentient terrain, non-London factions and communities, and more), and so many possibilities for things we haven’t encountered yet.
Prompts:
- Hurt/comfort and recovery in the aftermath of the events of Station VII
- Working together to make Furnace’s dream village a reality
- In a timeline where the PC has walked in Furnace’s dreams, are there any unexpected consequences of that?
- Does the PC ever surprise Furnace? How?
- Something to do with the Discordance. Furnace knows more about it than most people, which puts her in the rare position of being at an advantage over a PC of Some Importance, and I’m curious what it would take to get her to share some of this dangerous knowledge
- Various first times ∙ maybe sex or other types of physical intimacy, but also things like sharing a cup of tea or coffee, or just talking together as friends about things that don’t involve the job or Furnace’s past and goals. Furnace seems like someone who doesn’t let down her guard easily and likes to focus on work, and I’d love to see her get a chance to relax.
- Finally, it would be interesting to see the PC run across Furnace before they’re a Person of Some Importance, while they’re less established and still trying to survive and find their way in London. How do they meet? Do they clash, or are they on the same side, or something more complicated? If the PC is entangled with the Liberation of Night or some other more extreme Revolutionary faction ∙ or, conversely, with the Masters ∙ what does that mean for their interactions with Furnace?
Final Fantasy X
Fandom-Specific Likes: Spiran worldbuilding — customs, rituals, little mundane things and how they might differ from place to place ∙ The sense of a world that is in some ways post-apocalyptic, scattered with ruins and remnants of the past ∙ The tensions between faith and doubt, temporary life and inevitable death, hope and hopelessness, and the ways those things overlap and intercept ∙ Fiends and the unsent, legends and superstitions related to them (whether false or true), and the uncertain line between them ∙ Lots of attention to sense of place. Spira is a very atmospheric world, and I’d love something focusing on, for example, the lonely fallen splendor of Zanarkand, or the eeriness of Macalania Woods, or the lush but still dangerous beauty of Besaid.
Auron/Lulu
Things I like about this ship: Their interactions aren’t front and center in canon, but they’ve got a lot in common, as well as some potential sources of interesting tension. They’re older than most others on the Pilgrimage, more cynical and less trusting. They’re both experienced Guardians, and though their circumstances differ, they both know what it’s like to grieve for a summoner and to have failed in what they were trying to do. They both share a devotion to keeping Yuna safe. But Auron has a lot of secrets, and I wonder if Lulu ever picks up on any of them, and how she feels about it.
Prompts:
- Role-swap AU: Either Lulu or Auron is the Summoner instead of Yuna
- Canon divergence: One of them becomes the Final Aeon
- Missing scenes from the Pilgrimage: camping, keeping watch, stolen moments of peace
- The two of them fighting side by side to protect or rescue Yuna.
- Emotional or physical hurt/comfort between two stoics who won’t allow themselves a break but might recognize that the other needs one.
- Anything involving Auron’s nature as an unsent, what it’s like for him to cling to existence, and, if Lulu figures it out, what her thoughts are on the matter.
- Bathing together; Auron washing or braiding Lulu’s hair.
- The two of them kind of boggling at Tidus and the other Guardians’ shenanigans together.
Homestuck
Clarification on the underage DNW for this fandom. For ships where one or both characters dies before age 15, any of the following are welcome: 1) An AU or alternate timeline where they both get to survive and grow up; 2) An AU where they are resurrected post-canon; 3) Canon-timeline PG-rated shipfic (things like handholding and crushes are OK, heavy making out is not); 4) Canon-timeline platonic gen. If you’re writing an AU, you don’t need to go out of your way to specify ages. Just don’t set it during a point in canon where the characters must be under my stated age limit, and I’ll happily assume they’re older teenagers or adults.
Fandom-specific likes: Anything to do with the Game. I love that weird, melancholy, mythic atmosphere of early-canon SBURB/SGRUB, the bizarre game mechanics, the d00my apocalyptic feel and perhaps characters defying or rejecting it ∙ Anything to do with classpects and powers, including ways that these things might manifest or be reflected in a character’s life even outside the game ∙ Friendships among the characters; goofing off together, being ridiculous nerds, light-hearted teasing, banter and puns ∙ Helmstrolls, especially of the rogue, vengeful, and/or rescued variety, but also: characters willingly becoming helmstrolls for the sake of the rebellion or as a positive (or at least not wholly negative) thing post-overthrow of the Empire; consensual but emotionally-fraught helmstroll kink and/or things that replicate aspects of the experience ∙ Any troll (especially Karkat or Feferi) wrestling with their Ancestor’s legacy ∙ Alternian worldbuilding, from the ridiculous to the poignant or horrific
Fandom-specific DNWs: Epilogues or H^2 canon, with the exception that you are welcome to include June Egbert and trans guy or nonbinary Roxy if you choose ∙ Evil or tyrannical Feferi, or implications that she will inevitably become so (Feferi or other characters worrying that she might become her Ancestor is welcome. I just don’t like the idea that it will happen no matter what, because of, like, biological determinism or something)
Prompts for any ship in this fandom:
- Alternian rebellion AUs. I love them. Give me all of them.
- Space pirate and/or space fugitive AUs: the characters manage to escape on a ship together, and now they’re trying to hide and survive in a dangerous galaxy.
- Characters as gods (or gods and worshippers), in the rebuilt world or an AU
Dave Strider/Rose Lalonde
For this ship, I’d love either conventional Earth romance or the two of them somehow finding their way into a moirallegiance despite it being an alien concept.
Things I like about this ship: They know each other extremely well, including each other’s weak spots and vulnerabilities, and they have so much love and loyalty for each other combined with so much willingness to tease and spar and challenge each other, usually in fun ways but occasionally, on accident, in ways that might brush up against or cross a painful line. The easy way they click and build off each other’s conversational momentum. Their mutual refuge in irony and sarcasm when emotions are difficult. The fact that neither of them is willing to let the other go alone into the dark.
Regarding the incest: feel free to either acknowledge it or ignore it, according to your preference. However, I do not want any AU where they are raised together as siblings.
Prompts:
- One of them rescuing, defending, or avenging the other, or the two of them rescuing/defending/avenging each other ∙ from the Condesce? From Doc Scratch? From some other threat? Either way, I love them being terrifying in each other’s defense.
- Collaborating on some absurd artistic venture together (Sweet Bro and Eldritch Jeff: The Wizzard Editoin?)
- Luxury kink and/or physical comfort kink ∙ something focused on the enjoyment of nice clothing, good food, or other sensory pleasures. Each of them, in their own way, has a fraught relationship with affection, comfort, and abundance, and I’d love anything that digs into that while also allowing them to have nice things.
- Seer and Knight-flavored service kink
- Something post-canon where both of them come to terms with their experiences during the Game and rebuilding the world from scratch
- Fighting back against an Alternian invasion or living on a conquered Earth - for this one, either AU timeline beta Rose and Dave or alpha Rose and Dave would be great
- Trolling the trolls, during Meteorstuck or in the post-Game world
Feferi Peixes/Sollux Captor
For this ship, my preference is for flushed romance, but I’d also be happy with pale if that’s what you’re inspired to write.
Things I like about this ship: The respect, trust and fondness they have for each other, despite their different worlds and the very real power differential. BUT ALSO: that power differential, and the way the two of them are in some ways a reflection and reversal of the absolute horrorshow that is their Ancestors’ backstory. The Doom-Life contrast, and more generally the contrast in their personalities and life circumstances, and the way they fit so well with each other despite that. Feferi being a little bit (or a lot) spooky and eldritch, in a friendly and enthusiastic way. Sollux as someone who might be crass, rude, sardonic and cynical, but has nevertheless been absolutely swept off his feet by this unstoppable force of an Heiress. I like both of them being a little bit in awe of the other, in their own ways.
Prompts:
- How do they meet, in an AU where the Game never happens? Do they still find each other as kids or teens who share a friend network, or do they meet later, in different and perhaps more difficult circumstances? I’d love to see them both as adults or older teens fighting against or in hiding from the Empire, either together or with different factions, but any kind of no-SGRUB future-fic would be welcome.
- Helmstroll Sollux. There are SO many ways you can run with this. Maybe he’s a willing pilot (preferably with this being a fate that’s neither so permanent nor so terrible as on Imperial ships), either as something he chooses for himself or as a self-sacrificing thing for the sake of the Rebellion or some complicated measure of both. Maybe she rescues him from an Imperial ship. Or maybe she’s a prisoner on the ship he’s stuck in, and they comfort and/or rescue each other.
- Something where their separate worlds meet: Sollux teaching Feferi how to code or introducing her to his favorite video games? Feferi taking Sollux to the beach and/or teaching him to swim? Some other exchange of hobbies and/or experiences?
- Hemoswap AU: Psionic Feferi and Seadweller Sollux
- For canon-timeline prompts, I’d love anything involving them playing the Game together: exploring each other’s lands, solving puzzles, just getting to know each other during their adventures. We don’t really see how their relationship develops, only that it does, and anything that fills in the gaps would be great.
- I’d also love anything set when they’re both in the Dream Bubbles, exploring other lives and alternate timelines. What do they see there? How do they feel about it? Do they ever leave the Dream Bubbles behind in search of something else?
Karkat Vantas/Sollux Captor
I like this ship as blackrom, redrom, palerom, or a complicated mishmash of any of the above, with a side of best hatefriendship.
Things I like about this ship: How well they know each other, how much they trust each other and how much of a constant they’ve been in each other’s lives, and how despite all their conflicts and mutual trolling they’re fast friends and nothing’s going to change that (even if they don’t always believe it). They’ve seen each other at their worst and their best, and they might poke ruthlessly at each other’s insecurities (and their own by proxy), but they’ll also keep each other’s dangerous secrets and fight to defend each other… or just waste several hours being complete dorks together, as one does.
Prompts:
- Sollux remains on the meteor. What changes? What stays the same?
- Alternately, alive or half-ghost Sollux finds his way back to Earth C Post-Game. (Or maybe both of them do. How is Karkat going to deal with two Solluxes?)
- The two of them as adults hiding in plain sight in the Empire. Something where they might have survived Ascension, but they still have a lot to lose if Karkat’s mutation or Sollux’s psiioniics are revealed. This could be a good setting for anything including domesticity, mission-fic, hurt/comfort related to the pressures and dangers of survival, something where one of them has to think fast to keep the other safe, or any other idea.
- Again: Helmsman Sollux. Maybe willing, for the sake of the Rebellion. Maybe rescued. Maybe doing the rescuing.
- Karkat finally successfully programs a virus. Maybe this is just a long-awaited chance to wipe that smug look off Sollux’s face. Maybe the stakes are higher.
Mad Max
Fandom-Specific Likes: Supernatural or magical elements in an otherwise canon setting ∙ Wasteland mythology ∙ Glimpses of other Wasteland denizens and communities: Gastown, the Bullet Farm, farther-flung settlements, ferals and wanderers, History People ∙ Desert imagery; storms; rain; the wild, harsh beauty of a dangerous world ∙ Rebuilding the world, and watching it gradually heal itself
Fandom-specific DNWs: Nux being totally ignorant about sex and reproduction. It’s fine if he has no experience with these things, but I want him to have at least basic knowledge of how they work.
Capable/Nux
Things I like about this ship: Despite all odds, they’re just so sweet together. They’ve got this intense but transitory connection as two people who should be enemies but find the courage and kindness to reach out a hand to each other, and it’s not exactly a redemption arc because Nux is a victim too, but it’s not exactly not a redemption arc either. Nux has a really intriguing combination of innocence and wild violence, and Capable isn’t afraid of him at all, and she cuts through all the lies he’s struggling with because she looks at him like a person and touches him with kindness for the first time in maybe years.
Prompts:
- I’d love something set during canon — a bit of conversation we didn’t get to hear, a quiet moment, sharing stories or talking about their lives.
- I’d also love an AU where he survives (or is brought back somehow, or returns as a ghost, or…), and they get a chance to be with each other when they’re not running and fighting for their lives.
- A Rescue From The Underworld plot! There’s a lot of potential here for a mythic Wasteland, a journey out of the mundane world and into the lonely places where things get strange. What’s the Wasteland Underworld like? What do you need to do to retrieve someone from it?
- As far as other AUs go, what if they met in different circumstances ∙ Capable as a Wastelander who finds Nux when he’s lost or injured? Capable ending up with the War Boys instead of the Wives somehow? Nux meeting Capable when he’s given the honor of guarding the Vault? (Or any other situation you can think of.)
Furiosa/Toast the Knowing
Things I like about this ship: It’s a fantastic ship for mutual loyalty kink, mentorship, and two wounded, angry people finding solace in each other and healing together. I love how they compliment and contrast each other: they’re both tough, smart, practical, and survival-oriented, but while Toast is probably the most pragmatic of the wives (and I’m curious about her thoughts on Angharad’s pacifism), she’s still got an innocence and idealism that Furiosa lacks. I also see her as someone hungry for knowledge ∙ including, as time goes on, less immediately practical knowledge like history ∙ whereas Furiosa is more focused on moment-to-moment survival.
- Furiosa has stories. Toast wants to hear them.
- Bonding over lessons in combat, working with cars or machinery, or other Wasteland survival skills; Toast becoming a formidable Wastelander in her own right
- Toast becomes a History Woman
- Toast coming to Furiosa’s rescue, and/or the two of them fighting or tricking their way out of a dangerous situation together.
- Journeying into the Wasteland together, in search of something: Seeds? Allies? Surveying the terrain? A chance to finally lay the dead of the Fury Road to rest? Or something else entirely?
- Does Furiosa ever see her past self in Toast?
- Pining! Furiosa feeling like she’s too harsh, brutal, and/or irredeemable for Toast, and Toast showing her otherwise.
- Glimpses of their lives together: the two of them growing comfortable with each other, learning to let down defenses and share space. Intimate moments (emotionally or physically). Defending or leading the Citadel. Growing old together.
The Magnus Archives
Fandom-specific Likes: Statement fic ∙ The supernatural intruding into ordinary life; mundane things made frightening ∙ Conversely, mundanity and domesticity ∙ and even peace ∙ in the middle of horror ∙ Spooky locations (for example, the tunnels beneath the Institute, or those pocket dimensions the powers pull people into) ∙ Leitners and artifacts ∙ Horror-hunger (cannibalism, the Avatars’ need to prey on people’s fear, etc.), and especially explorations of the psychological/emotional side of being a predator and/or being prey ∙ The Spiral, the Extinction, the Lonely, the Web, the Hunt, and the Dark
Fandom-Specific DNWs: The disease-related aspects of the Corruption (bugs and gross parasites are fine)
Adelard Dekker/Gertrude Robinson
Things I like about this ship: All that history. The idea of them as comrades in arms with very different and often opposing ethics and methods but the same goal and a similar pragmatism and willingness to blow things up. The mutual trust, and the mutual awareness that trust can only go so far, because Adelard knows that if the world is at stake then Gertrude will betray him, and Gertrude knows that putting too much faith in anyone but herself is dangerous. While I’m intrigued by and would love to read backstory, first meetings, and the early days of working together, I LOVE the dynamic of two aging, weary soldiers in an unwindable warand also both of them are silver foxes, and if you’re planning on writing domesticity, PWP, or something more introspective, my preference is that it take place when they’re older.
Prompts:
- If you feel like writing it, this is a great ship for casefic: Hunting down a Leitner or artifact? Looking for information about a Ritual? A case that puts them at odds with each other, or perhaps one that takes place when they’re younger and still at odds with each other.
- A job difficult or awful enough to shake up even Gertrude, and/or the tired mutual hurt/comfort afterward.
- Epistolary: sharing case notes and information; Adelard gives a statement; things written or said between the lines.
- Extinction Avatar!Adelard. Alternately, Gertrude goes full Eye Avatar. What drives her to it? How does Adelard react?
- On the lighter side of things, I feel like this ship has a lot of potential for outsider POV + fake relationship, along the lines of ‘Aw, look at that charming elderly married tourist couple. I wonder if they know they just checked into a haunted hotel. … ….. WTF, the hotel just exploded?!’
- Role Swap: Archivist Adelard and independent agent Gertrude.
- I’m just gonna leave this poem here: https://poets.org/poem/variation-word-sleep
Evan Lukas/Naomi Herne
Things I like about this ship: For all that they only show up in one episode of canon following Evan’s death, these two really made an impression on me. Their relationship is a bright spot for both characters in a canon full of bleakness, and then it inevitably ends in loss. I love Naomi’s prickliness and determination to survive and be heard, and I love the brief but sweet life she and Evan built together. I’m seriously intrigued by the thought of Evan as someone raised to serve the Lonely who had both the desire and the will to leave it behind, and I’m fond of the idea that he might have already been an Avatar when he met Naomi ∙ though if you do go that route, I have a mild preference for an Evan who was already trying to leave or had successfully left the Avatar life behind, rather than one who was only inspired to change by Naomi. She might have been one of the things giving him the strength to stick with his decision, though.
Prompts:
- A moment of happiness during the course of their relationship, or the early days when they’re finding something in each other that neither thought they could have.
- Conversely, I don’t want to see Evan being or seeming like a threat to Naomi, but was he ever more unsettling than he should have been?
- What happened to Naomi after her statement? Does she try to leave the supernatural behind, or try to learn more? I like the idea that Evan continues looking out for her after his death, but maybe she has to be the one to shake off the Lonely’s influence on her own.
- Alternately, maybe she doesn’t shake off the Lonely’s influence. Maybe after her statement, or during the Eyepocalypse, she slips into the Lonely dimension and finds… and rescues… someone she thought she’d lost. (Which might end with a return to the world, or passing on together into whatever waits after death, or building a little space for themselves and perhaps even others on the shore of a lonely ocean, or something else entirely.)
- Alternately, for a darker take, how much might Naomi be willing to do to get Evan back? Does she succeed? Is it worth it, or does she regret it?
First of all, thank you for writing for me! I love all my requested fandoms and ships, and I’m excited to read whatever you come up with. Prompts are intended as a source of inspiration, and if you’ve got an idea that doesn’t follow any of them, I encourage you to run with it. If your interpretation of any of the ships or characters differs from my own, I encourage you to write them as you like. Finally, feel free to take any of my likes as a prompt all on its own, even if I don’t mention anything about it in my fandom-specific prompts.
I love less common POVs and formats (for example, first person, second person, non-chronological, a series of linked drabbles), and I’d be happy with any rating from G to Explicit (including smut) and any tone from fluff to darkfic. I’m open to character death, graphic violence, and sad or bittersweet (but preferably not utterly hopeless) endings. I’m also open to crossovers among any of my requested fandoms. Also, while longer fic is great too, I really love shortfic, so don’t hesitate to write me something at or near the word limit.
Overall Likes: Sense of place or atmosphere ∙ Location-based horror or mystery (for example, abandoned ruins, strange landscapes, eldritch architecture) ∙ Worldbuilding, including the little mundane details of daily life in fictional places ∙ Introspection and small character-driven moments ∙ Slice of life ∙ Missing scenes ∙ Survival in difficult circumstances ∙ Small moments of peace in the midst of danger or hardship ∙ Food as a source of comfort or bonding, or as a way of showing affection ∙ Characters who are used to going without something (food, kindness, physical contact, a chance to rest, etc.) receiving it ∙ Uneasy alliances ∙ Gradually earned trust ∙ Unexpected mercy ∙ Redemption, including ways in which redemption is complicated or difficult ∙ Exploration of power dynamics and differentials, especially when neither character wants to hurt or take advantage of the other but there are social or external reasons for one to assume that the other might ∙ Characters fighting against doom, fate, and/or impossible odds, and maybe winning ∙ Defiance ∙ Courtliness and romantic gestures ∙ Loyalty kink ∙ AUs of the following types: canon-divergence, role swap, urban fantasy and/or futuristic fantasy, cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic ∙ Ghosts ∙ Vampires
NSFW likes: Character-focused sex ∙ Non-penetrative sex ∙ Body worship ∙ Xeno ∙ Hand-kink and/or glove-kink ∙ Clothing kink (for example, rich fabrics, soft or pleasant textures, outfits with emotional significance) ∙ Sensory play (for example, focus on textures or temperatures, sensory deprivation) ∙ Bathing or showering together ∙ Consensual but non-formal BDSM-related kinks (for example, bondage or impact play), not necessarily all at once ∙ Consensual voyeurism/exhibitionism ∙ Kink as something influenced by or used to explore a character’s not-necessarily-inherently-sexual fears, desires, or emotions ∙ Feel free to include kinks not listed here as long as they don’t show up in my DNWs.
Do Not Wants: Rape/non-con between requested pairings. Situational dubcon due to external forces (for example, ‘bad guys made them due it’) is totally fine. So is off-screen or non-graphic non-con by villainous characters as part of a rescue, escape, revenge, and/or hurt-comfort scenario ∙ Any sexual content involving characters aged 14 or under. Future-fic where they’re older is totally fine ∙ Contempt between requested pairings. There might be conflict, they might be adversaries, but there should be respect there ∙ Racekink ∙ Damage to teeth or fingernails. ∙ A/B/O. ∙ Rimming, anal fingering, or lots of focus on penetrative anal sex ∙ Watersports or scat ∙ Sounding ∙ Infantilization, age regression, and/or age-play ∙ Modern mundane AUs ∙ Pregnancy or fic with heavy focus on raising children, except where requested or canon-compliant ∙ Serious real world illness, except where canon-compliant (for example, Nux’s probably-cancer illness in Mad Max), and even then, I’d prefer no character death due to illness. Fictional illnesses (e.g., animescence, voidrot, space zombie plague) are totally fine, even as a major focus.
Fallen London
Fandom-Specific Likes: Canon-typical horror, wonder, humor, and Neathy weirdness ∙ Neathy worldbuilding, in London and outside it; traces of older cities, and glimpses of what else is out there besides the cities purchased by the Masters ∙ Dreams and dreamlike imagery; Parabola; cats and snakes ∙ The Devils, either as charming and dangerous evil or as morally complex and surprisingly sympathetic ∙ Underdog characters (e.g., the Urchins, the Rubberies, the Clay Men, the rats)
Fandom-Specific DNWs: Seeking Mr Eaten’s Name and anything connected to it, including Mr Candles and focus on Mr Veils’s psyche or backstory (including him as an obstacle to the Railway and/or the workers is fine). Note that I have no objections to the kind of dark subject matter explored in SMEN. I’s that specific storyline I DNW.
Notes:
- For the Player Character’s gender, male, female, and nonbinary are all welcome
- I’ve played several Exceptional Stories (and I’m willing to work from context for those I haven’t), as well as Sunless Sea and Skies, so anything in the Failbetter Cinematic Universe is welcome.
Furnace Ancona/Player Character
Things I like about this ship: Like many people, I was immediately taken with Furnace as a character and her interactions with the Player ∙ sometimes tense and challenging, sometimes grudgingly trusting, sometimes even friendly. I love sympathetic characters who absolutely will oppose the protagonist when they think it’s necessary, and Furnace is definitely one of those. I prefer a PC who’s firmly on the side of (or at the very least, sympathetic to) the workers, although they and Furnace may still have different goals and priorities, and I love the thought of Furnace starting out wary or outright suspicious ∙ for good reason! ∙ until the PC demonstrates that they can be trusted. And we see some of how that might happen in the game, but I’d love to see other smaller moments along the way, as part of a developing romance or just a shift from potential adversaries to allies.
Setting-wise, I’d love something set in that stretch of terrain the Railway passes through from London’s outskirts to Hell’s Hinterlands. There are so many interesting things happening there (strange flora and fauna, eerie woods and waterways, old battlefields, shifting and sometimes sentient terrain, non-London factions and communities, and more), and so many possibilities for things we haven’t encountered yet.
Prompts:
- Hurt/comfort and recovery in the aftermath of the events of Station VII
- Working together to make Furnace’s dream village a reality
- In a timeline where the PC has walked in Furnace’s dreams, are there any unexpected consequences of that?
- Does the PC ever surprise Furnace? How?
- Something to do with the Discordance. Furnace knows more about it than most people, which puts her in the rare position of being at an advantage over a PC of Some Importance, and I’m curious what it would take to get her to share some of this dangerous knowledge
- Various first times ∙ maybe sex or other types of physical intimacy, but also things like sharing a cup of tea or coffee, or just talking together as friends about things that don’t involve the job or Furnace’s past and goals. Furnace seems like someone who doesn’t let down her guard easily and likes to focus on work, and I’d love to see her get a chance to relax.
- Finally, it would be interesting to see the PC run across Furnace before they’re a Person of Some Importance, while they’re less established and still trying to survive and find their way in London. How do they meet? Do they clash, or are they on the same side, or something more complicated? If the PC is entangled with the Liberation of Night or some other more extreme Revolutionary faction ∙ or, conversely, with the Masters ∙ what does that mean for their interactions with Furnace?
Final Fantasy X
Fandom-Specific Likes: Spiran worldbuilding — customs, rituals, little mundane things and how they might differ from place to place ∙ The sense of a world that is in some ways post-apocalyptic, scattered with ruins and remnants of the past ∙ The tensions between faith and doubt, temporary life and inevitable death, hope and hopelessness, and the ways those things overlap and intercept ∙ Fiends and the unsent, legends and superstitions related to them (whether false or true), and the uncertain line between them ∙ Lots of attention to sense of place. Spira is a very atmospheric world, and I’d love something focusing on, for example, the lonely fallen splendor of Zanarkand, or the eeriness of Macalania Woods, or the lush but still dangerous beauty of Besaid.
Auron/Lulu
Things I like about this ship: Their interactions aren’t front and center in canon, but they’ve got a lot in common, as well as some potential sources of interesting tension. They’re older than most others on the Pilgrimage, more cynical and less trusting. They’re both experienced Guardians, and though their circumstances differ, they both know what it’s like to grieve for a summoner and to have failed in what they were trying to do. They both share a devotion to keeping Yuna safe. But Auron has a lot of secrets, and I wonder if Lulu ever picks up on any of them, and how she feels about it.
Prompts:
- Role-swap AU: Either Lulu or Auron is the Summoner instead of Yuna
- Canon divergence: One of them becomes the Final Aeon
- Missing scenes from the Pilgrimage: camping, keeping watch, stolen moments of peace
- The two of them fighting side by side to protect or rescue Yuna.
- Emotional or physical hurt/comfort between two stoics who won’t allow themselves a break but might recognize that the other needs one.
- Anything involving Auron’s nature as an unsent, what it’s like for him to cling to existence, and, if Lulu figures it out, what her thoughts are on the matter.
- Bathing together; Auron washing or braiding Lulu’s hair.
- The two of them kind of boggling at Tidus and the other Guardians’ shenanigans together.
Homestuck
Clarification on the underage DNW for this fandom. For ships where one or both characters dies before age 15, any of the following are welcome: 1) An AU or alternate timeline where they both get to survive and grow up; 2) An AU where they are resurrected post-canon; 3) Canon-timeline PG-rated shipfic (things like handholding and crushes are OK, heavy making out is not); 4) Canon-timeline platonic gen. If you’re writing an AU, you don’t need to go out of your way to specify ages. Just don’t set it during a point in canon where the characters must be under my stated age limit, and I’ll happily assume they’re older teenagers or adults.
Fandom-specific likes: Anything to do with the Game. I love that weird, melancholy, mythic atmosphere of early-canon SBURB/SGRUB, the bizarre game mechanics, the d00my apocalyptic feel and perhaps characters defying or rejecting it ∙ Anything to do with classpects and powers, including ways that these things might manifest or be reflected in a character’s life even outside the game ∙ Friendships among the characters; goofing off together, being ridiculous nerds, light-hearted teasing, banter and puns ∙ Helmstrolls, especially of the rogue, vengeful, and/or rescued variety, but also: characters willingly becoming helmstrolls for the sake of the rebellion or as a positive (or at least not wholly negative) thing post-overthrow of the Empire; consensual but emotionally-fraught helmstroll kink and/or things that replicate aspects of the experience ∙ Any troll (especially Karkat or Feferi) wrestling with their Ancestor’s legacy ∙ Alternian worldbuilding, from the ridiculous to the poignant or horrific
Fandom-specific DNWs: Epilogues or H^2 canon, with the exception that you are welcome to include June Egbert and trans guy or nonbinary Roxy if you choose ∙ Evil or tyrannical Feferi, or implications that she will inevitably become so (Feferi or other characters worrying that she might become her Ancestor is welcome. I just don’t like the idea that it will happen no matter what, because of, like, biological determinism or something)
Prompts for any ship in this fandom:
- Alternian rebellion AUs. I love them. Give me all of them.
- Space pirate and/or space fugitive AUs: the characters manage to escape on a ship together, and now they’re trying to hide and survive in a dangerous galaxy.
- Characters as gods (or gods and worshippers), in the rebuilt world or an AU
Dave Strider/Rose Lalonde
For this ship, I’d love either conventional Earth romance or the two of them somehow finding their way into a moirallegiance despite it being an alien concept.
Things I like about this ship: They know each other extremely well, including each other’s weak spots and vulnerabilities, and they have so much love and loyalty for each other combined with so much willingness to tease and spar and challenge each other, usually in fun ways but occasionally, on accident, in ways that might brush up against or cross a painful line. The easy way they click and build off each other’s conversational momentum. Their mutual refuge in irony and sarcasm when emotions are difficult. The fact that neither of them is willing to let the other go alone into the dark.
Regarding the incest: feel free to either acknowledge it or ignore it, according to your preference. However, I do not want any AU where they are raised together as siblings.
Prompts:
- One of them rescuing, defending, or avenging the other, or the two of them rescuing/defending/avenging each other ∙ from the Condesce? From Doc Scratch? From some other threat? Either way, I love them being terrifying in each other’s defense.
- Collaborating on some absurd artistic venture together (Sweet Bro and Eldritch Jeff: The Wizzard Editoin?)
- Luxury kink and/or physical comfort kink ∙ something focused on the enjoyment of nice clothing, good food, or other sensory pleasures. Each of them, in their own way, has a fraught relationship with affection, comfort, and abundance, and I’d love anything that digs into that while also allowing them to have nice things.
- Seer and Knight-flavored service kink
- Something post-canon where both of them come to terms with their experiences during the Game and rebuilding the world from scratch
- Fighting back against an Alternian invasion or living on a conquered Earth - for this one, either AU timeline beta Rose and Dave or alpha Rose and Dave would be great
- Trolling the trolls, during Meteorstuck or in the post-Game world
Feferi Peixes/Sollux Captor
For this ship, my preference is for flushed romance, but I’d also be happy with pale if that’s what you’re inspired to write.
Things I like about this ship: The respect, trust and fondness they have for each other, despite their different worlds and the very real power differential. BUT ALSO: that power differential, and the way the two of them are in some ways a reflection and reversal of the absolute horrorshow that is their Ancestors’ backstory. The Doom-Life contrast, and more generally the contrast in their personalities and life circumstances, and the way they fit so well with each other despite that. Feferi being a little bit (or a lot) spooky and eldritch, in a friendly and enthusiastic way. Sollux as someone who might be crass, rude, sardonic and cynical, but has nevertheless been absolutely swept off his feet by this unstoppable force of an Heiress. I like both of them being a little bit in awe of the other, in their own ways.
Prompts:
- How do they meet, in an AU where the Game never happens? Do they still find each other as kids or teens who share a friend network, or do they meet later, in different and perhaps more difficult circumstances? I’d love to see them both as adults or older teens fighting against or in hiding from the Empire, either together or with different factions, but any kind of no-SGRUB future-fic would be welcome.
- Helmstroll Sollux. There are SO many ways you can run with this. Maybe he’s a willing pilot (preferably with this being a fate that’s neither so permanent nor so terrible as on Imperial ships), either as something he chooses for himself or as a self-sacrificing thing for the sake of the Rebellion or some complicated measure of both. Maybe she rescues him from an Imperial ship. Or maybe she’s a prisoner on the ship he’s stuck in, and they comfort and/or rescue each other.
- Something where their separate worlds meet: Sollux teaching Feferi how to code or introducing her to his favorite video games? Feferi taking Sollux to the beach and/or teaching him to swim? Some other exchange of hobbies and/or experiences?
- Hemoswap AU: Psionic Feferi and Seadweller Sollux
- For canon-timeline prompts, I’d love anything involving them playing the Game together: exploring each other’s lands, solving puzzles, just getting to know each other during their adventures. We don’t really see how their relationship develops, only that it does, and anything that fills in the gaps would be great.
- I’d also love anything set when they’re both in the Dream Bubbles, exploring other lives and alternate timelines. What do they see there? How do they feel about it? Do they ever leave the Dream Bubbles behind in search of something else?
Karkat Vantas/Sollux Captor
I like this ship as blackrom, redrom, palerom, or a complicated mishmash of any of the above, with a side of best hatefriendship.
Things I like about this ship: How well they know each other, how much they trust each other and how much of a constant they’ve been in each other’s lives, and how despite all their conflicts and mutual trolling they’re fast friends and nothing’s going to change that (even if they don’t always believe it). They’ve seen each other at their worst and their best, and they might poke ruthlessly at each other’s insecurities (and their own by proxy), but they’ll also keep each other’s dangerous secrets and fight to defend each other… or just waste several hours being complete dorks together, as one does.
Prompts:
- Sollux remains on the meteor. What changes? What stays the same?
- Alternately, alive or half-ghost Sollux finds his way back to Earth C Post-Game. (Or maybe both of them do. How is Karkat going to deal with two Solluxes?)
- The two of them as adults hiding in plain sight in the Empire. Something where they might have survived Ascension, but they still have a lot to lose if Karkat’s mutation or Sollux’s psiioniics are revealed. This could be a good setting for anything including domesticity, mission-fic, hurt/comfort related to the pressures and dangers of survival, something where one of them has to think fast to keep the other safe, or any other idea.
- Again: Helmsman Sollux. Maybe willing, for the sake of the Rebellion. Maybe rescued. Maybe doing the rescuing.
- Karkat finally successfully programs a virus. Maybe this is just a long-awaited chance to wipe that smug look off Sollux’s face. Maybe the stakes are higher.
Mad Max
Fandom-Specific Likes: Supernatural or magical elements in an otherwise canon setting ∙ Wasteland mythology ∙ Glimpses of other Wasteland denizens and communities: Gastown, the Bullet Farm, farther-flung settlements, ferals and wanderers, History People ∙ Desert imagery; storms; rain; the wild, harsh beauty of a dangerous world ∙ Rebuilding the world, and watching it gradually heal itself
Fandom-specific DNWs: Nux being totally ignorant about sex and reproduction. It’s fine if he has no experience with these things, but I want him to have at least basic knowledge of how they work.
Capable/Nux
Things I like about this ship: Despite all odds, they’re just so sweet together. They’ve got this intense but transitory connection as two people who should be enemies but find the courage and kindness to reach out a hand to each other, and it’s not exactly a redemption arc because Nux is a victim too, but it’s not exactly not a redemption arc either. Nux has a really intriguing combination of innocence and wild violence, and Capable isn’t afraid of him at all, and she cuts through all the lies he’s struggling with because she looks at him like a person and touches him with kindness for the first time in maybe years.
Prompts:
- I’d love something set during canon — a bit of conversation we didn’t get to hear, a quiet moment, sharing stories or talking about their lives.
- I’d also love an AU where he survives (or is brought back somehow, or returns as a ghost, or…), and they get a chance to be with each other when they’re not running and fighting for their lives.
- A Rescue From The Underworld plot! There’s a lot of potential here for a mythic Wasteland, a journey out of the mundane world and into the lonely places where things get strange. What’s the Wasteland Underworld like? What do you need to do to retrieve someone from it?
- As far as other AUs go, what if they met in different circumstances ∙ Capable as a Wastelander who finds Nux when he’s lost or injured? Capable ending up with the War Boys instead of the Wives somehow? Nux meeting Capable when he’s given the honor of guarding the Vault? (Or any other situation you can think of.)
Furiosa/Toast the Knowing
Things I like about this ship: It’s a fantastic ship for mutual loyalty kink, mentorship, and two wounded, angry people finding solace in each other and healing together. I love how they compliment and contrast each other: they’re both tough, smart, practical, and survival-oriented, but while Toast is probably the most pragmatic of the wives (and I’m curious about her thoughts on Angharad’s pacifism), she’s still got an innocence and idealism that Furiosa lacks. I also see her as someone hungry for knowledge ∙ including, as time goes on, less immediately practical knowledge like history ∙ whereas Furiosa is more focused on moment-to-moment survival.
- Furiosa has stories. Toast wants to hear them.
- Bonding over lessons in combat, working with cars or machinery, or other Wasteland survival skills; Toast becoming a formidable Wastelander in her own right
- Toast becomes a History Woman
- Toast coming to Furiosa’s rescue, and/or the two of them fighting or tricking their way out of a dangerous situation together.
- Journeying into the Wasteland together, in search of something: Seeds? Allies? Surveying the terrain? A chance to finally lay the dead of the Fury Road to rest? Or something else entirely?
- Does Furiosa ever see her past self in Toast?
- Pining! Furiosa feeling like she’s too harsh, brutal, and/or irredeemable for Toast, and Toast showing her otherwise.
- Glimpses of their lives together: the two of them growing comfortable with each other, learning to let down defenses and share space. Intimate moments (emotionally or physically). Defending or leading the Citadel. Growing old together.
The Magnus Archives
Fandom-specific Likes: Statement fic ∙ The supernatural intruding into ordinary life; mundane things made frightening ∙ Conversely, mundanity and domesticity ∙ and even peace ∙ in the middle of horror ∙ Spooky locations (for example, the tunnels beneath the Institute, or those pocket dimensions the powers pull people into) ∙ Leitners and artifacts ∙ Horror-hunger (cannibalism, the Avatars’ need to prey on people’s fear, etc.), and especially explorations of the psychological/emotional side of being a predator and/or being prey ∙ The Spiral, the Extinction, the Lonely, the Web, the Hunt, and the Dark
Fandom-Specific DNWs: The disease-related aspects of the Corruption (bugs and gross parasites are fine)
Adelard Dekker/Gertrude Robinson
Things I like about this ship: All that history. The idea of them as comrades in arms with very different and often opposing ethics and methods but the same goal and a similar pragmatism and willingness to blow things up. The mutual trust, and the mutual awareness that trust can only go so far, because Adelard knows that if the world is at stake then Gertrude will betray him, and Gertrude knows that putting too much faith in anyone but herself is dangerous. While I’m intrigued by and would love to read backstory, first meetings, and the early days of working together, I LOVE the dynamic of two aging, weary soldiers in an unwindable war
Prompts:
- If you feel like writing it, this is a great ship for casefic: Hunting down a Leitner or artifact? Looking for information about a Ritual? A case that puts them at odds with each other, or perhaps one that takes place when they’re younger and still at odds with each other.
- A job difficult or awful enough to shake up even Gertrude, and/or the tired mutual hurt/comfort afterward.
- Epistolary: sharing case notes and information; Adelard gives a statement; things written or said between the lines.
- Extinction Avatar!Adelard. Alternately, Gertrude goes full Eye Avatar. What drives her to it? How does Adelard react?
- On the lighter side of things, I feel like this ship has a lot of potential for outsider POV + fake relationship, along the lines of ‘Aw, look at that charming elderly married tourist couple. I wonder if they know they just checked into a haunted hotel. … ….. WTF, the hotel just exploded?!’
- Role Swap: Archivist Adelard and independent agent Gertrude.
- I’m just gonna leave this poem here: https://poets.org/poem/variation-word-sleep
Evan Lukas/Naomi Herne
Things I like about this ship: For all that they only show up in one episode of canon following Evan’s death, these two really made an impression on me. Their relationship is a bright spot for both characters in a canon full of bleakness, and then it inevitably ends in loss. I love Naomi’s prickliness and determination to survive and be heard, and I love the brief but sweet life she and Evan built together. I’m seriously intrigued by the thought of Evan as someone raised to serve the Lonely who had both the desire and the will to leave it behind, and I’m fond of the idea that he might have already been an Avatar when he met Naomi ∙ though if you do go that route, I have a mild preference for an Evan who was already trying to leave or had successfully left the Avatar life behind, rather than one who was only inspired to change by Naomi. She might have been one of the things giving him the strength to stick with his decision, though.
Prompts:
- A moment of happiness during the course of their relationship, or the early days when they’re finding something in each other that neither thought they could have.
- Conversely, I don’t want to see Evan being or seeming like a threat to Naomi, but was he ever more unsettling than he should have been?
- What happened to Naomi after her statement? Does she try to leave the supernatural behind, or try to learn more? I like the idea that Evan continues looking out for her after his death, but maybe she has to be the one to shake off the Lonely’s influence on her own.
- Alternately, maybe she doesn’t shake off the Lonely’s influence. Maybe after her statement, or during the Eyepocalypse, she slips into the Lonely dimension and finds… and rescues… someone she thought she’d lost. (Which might end with a return to the world, or passing on together into whatever waits after death, or building a little space for themselves and perhaps even others on the shore of a lonely ocean, or something else entirely.)
- Alternately, for a darker take, how much might Naomi be willing to do to get Evan back? Does she succeed? Is it worth it, or does she regret it?