Janua Caeli

Dear Yuletide Writer 2021

morbane — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 08:35:03 GMT

Welcome and thank you! I promise I'm much faster at reading and commenting than I am at writing letters. I'm Morbane at AO3, and this year I have requested Black Jewels, the Blending Series, Graceling Realm, Love & Legends, the Neverending Story, and The Seer and the Sword.

General likes/dislikes

Do Not Wants: amnesia, drug abuse & dependency, harm to hands
Canonical forms/instances of amnesia are okay, though I'd prefer they weren't the focus of a story.

Likes: I love original characters, outsider character perspectives, and worldbuilding. I like Big Damn Hero moments, and also days in the life, or stories about people who are just trying to make it by in a weird world. I love competence and loyalty. I like uplifting and hopeful messages, and protagonists who champion them. I also like genuinely terrible characters and tragic arcs, and villains with strong motivations and critiques of the protagonists' goals. Characters are welcome in any shade of grey. I like seeing characters screw up and then learn (or not) from their mistakes.

I love magical realism, dramatic weather, trains, telepathy, and dragons. I like getting a strong sense of time or place.

For porn, I love telepathy, praise kink, and awkward-but-not-emotionally-disastrous sex; intense oh-god-I-can't-believe-it's-so-good sex; gentle and loving sex. I love emotional intimacy whether or not it comes with physical intimacy. I love mentors and protegé(e) relationships, and relationships between characters who are juggling multiple identities. I love seeing the relationship between two characters at one point in time, and then seeing it again when the relationship is very different. I'm just as interested in break-ups as get-togethers.

I love it when authors incorporate something about which they have enthusiasm or specialized knowledge, however mundane or weird that thing is.

You're welcome to write in past or present tense, and in first, second, or third person. Epistolary and found-media formats are welcome. I am not opting in to interactive fiction or to a work mostly in poetic forms.

Black Jewels - Anne Bishop

Worldbuilding

From my sign-up: I am delighted to be able to request Worldbuilding for this canon. You're welcome to focus on major canon characters, minor canon characters, or OCs.

Black Jewels has so many rules about protocol and tradition. And in every canon like that, I have thoughts like - okay but what if things didn't go right? What then? Or: how did this rule get developed? Or: how could that rule get challenged and replaced, because people and their needs are always evolving? WHAT IF? What actually happens?

I am fascinated by the castes; by relations between realms; by life in Terreille before Dorothea and after her; by previous witches who were called Witch; by Landen-Blood relations; by the lives of the lighter blood; by mundane uses for and limitations on magic.

More thoughts:
I know this is one canon where if you poke at certain aspects of the worldbuilding, it may collapse like a sad soufflé (example: how can there be no language drift besides the Old Tongue, and no language barriers anywhere??). So you are welcome to cheerfully handwave some of the more ridiculous aspects in order to explore the ones that interest you more. But even if you handwaved madly, there'd still be a lot to dig around in. I'd enjoy some really indulgent stories about Blood rituals and Virgin Nights and magical animals; l'd also be happy with complicated or mundane or bittersweet, where the idealised rules meet with the (dragon-)human.

I haven't talked a lot about the nominated cast. I love everyone... but I'm working through the choices Bishop made the characters make in Queen's Bargain and Queen's Weapons. Lucivar can stay. DAEMON WHAT ARE YOU DOING. So if you want to write a fic set in that era, I'd appreciate a little extra compassion for Jaenelle Saetien and a little extra questioning of Surreal and Daemon's choices.

More prompts:

The Landen perspective! Bleak awareness of a dystopia is fine, but I'd also be interested in more hopeful stories, or anything in between. And sure, I'd love a Beauty and the Beast style story of a successful friendship or romance between Landen and Blood.

I am also really fascinated by more stories about people who are caught between the cultures of Landen and Blood! The haunted house plot of Tangled Webs didn't grab me (sorry!), but that's a pity, because otherwise I would have been so into the villain's story. People unexpectedly born Blood in a Landen family. People in a Blood family who are so low-powered that they tentatively reach out to the other community. Yes please.

I am deeply interested in the post-Witch Storm period in Terreille when people were picking up the pieces and choosing who to be beyond Dorothea. What were the models they drew on? How did they begin again?

We also know that the Black Widow caste was heavily suppressed during Dorothea's reign. How did they maintain their covens? Tell me about established Black Widows taking risks to secure their legacy, or new Black Widows trying to figure out who they could trust.

Similarly, I'm interested in the full duties of the Priest and Priestess caste, and the Prince caste. We meet very few Princes who are not also Warrior Princes, and I'm interested in the distinction.

Another period I'm interested in is early in Dorothea's reign. You're welcome to make her compelling in her ambition. I would love to see her early manouevrings.

Because of Jaenelle's circle, we get hints about a lot of Territories within Kaeleer. I'd love to see a story set in any of those we don't know much about!

I really, really want to know about Cassandra's Court. I want to know about any other embodiments of Witch. It seems like all Witches before Jaenelle were extraordinary, but she was truly on another level. I want to know what "the coming of Witch" meant before Jaenelle came.

What about relations between races, with particular attention to differences in lifespans?

What about new technologies? What suppresses them and what drives them?

What does it mean to have 'basic Craft', since that's separate from jewel levels?

The Blending Series - Sharon Green

Any (Tamrissa, Jovvi, Worldbuilding)

From my sign-up: Any of Jovvi, Tamrissa, and Worldbuilding would be excellent. I'm very fond of both Jovvi - with her combination of caution, poise, and care - and Tamrissa - generous, unquenchable - and I ship them, but would also enjoy seeing them written as platonic allies. And of course just one of them is fine! Background Lorand/Jovvi is fine; however I'd prefer minimal Tamrissa/Vallant. Rion and Naran are welcome.

And so are OCs! I would especially adore original Blending competitors, just to take advantage of the dialled-up-to-the-max tropes: I'd love to see a new group go through the process of forming their relationships and discovering that sex is the key to Blending. But there are so many other things that would be fun! Show me the life of a Middle or High adept who's figured out how most safely to stay within the lines, or who hasn't; give me the real movers and shakers of the empire (how is a Blending's transition supposed to work normally? Has it EVER gone normally?); and of course I am always keen on an exploration on mundane life as shaped by the mere existence of magic.

If you're writing Jovvi and/or Tamrissa, complete canon divergence would be fun (what if their Blending never recovers the throne and they operate as rogues?) or practical problems during their rule, or snapshots of them at various times? (Comfortably aged Jovvi and/or Tamrissa would be lovely.)

More thoughts:
So this is an eight-book series set in a fantasy world where having magical affinity for Spirit, Water, Air, Earth, or Fire is common, and where our main setting of Gandistra is traditionally ruled by a matched - or perhaps match-made - set of masters of these elements, because according to prophesy, that's how Gandistra must be ruled or a terrible calamity will result. Also, every twenty-five years, a new set of adepts has to be selected through competitions.

Hopefully we are on the same page about how this set-up is elaborate to the point of absurdity: that is part of its appeal to me, because of course it's become corrupted and of course the practical details are frantically handwaved and of course it's wonderfully ripe for a set of righteous underdogs to come along, overcome their personal hang-ups, and overcome the competition to be The! Best! And! Most! Enlightened! Rulers! Who also have to be a sort-of polycule! Because sex makes their combined magic stronger!

Part of me is laughing in delight at how ridiculous the implications (and sometimes, the plots) get; part of me is really earnestly along for the ride. I love the descriptions of the use of magic at heightened occasions and for mundane tasks; I love the way the series protagonists becomes a tightly-knit team alongside the development of romantic/sexual attractions, not just because of them; I love what's hinted at regarding practical worldbuilding, especially as it relates to governance, and I love the gaps that are left in practical worldbuilding and what scope one has in filling them. What a sandbox!

An original set of characters thrown together in some other competition year would be A+. Another noble group who are meant to play second fiddle to the "correct" group? A selected noble group who actually have consciences? A different underdog group? And such a group negotiating what the sex angle means for them would be fascinating. I do mean negotiating - blissful sex would be welcome, but so would other more complicated reactions that allow for dignity/agency.

But! I enjoyed the canon characters too. I liked Jovvi's deep ingrained distrust of authority, how she approached the ongoing problem of exercising consensual/ethical control over others, and her evolving sense of what it meant to her to be the authority. I liked Tamrissa's aggressive power that increasingly came from a position of strength rather than fear, and I liked watching her learn to trust others around her. I found Rion's earnestness appealing, found Naran's different introduction to her powers interesting, don't mind Lorand, and was a bit frustrated with some of Vallant's arcs and hang-ups. So if you want to write about canon characters, go for it, please, and I hope I am giving you enough to work with! (Regarding canon ships, I'd prefer minimal Vallant/Tamrissa. Other ships are fine. Jovvi/Tamrissa is also welcome, as are other relationships within the Blending.)

I have only skimmed the last three books, sorry, as Green's prose style has worn on me a little since I first read the initial pentalogy. Although I enjoy the six working in harmony, I like more focus on them being individuals achieving close cooperation than turning into one mind with six parts.

I also enjoy the potential for very dramatic, twisted scenarios, including with sexual coercion, but felt this was a bit heavy-handed in the books, with evil spirit magic users skipping straight to all-out puppetry. More subtle manipulations would be welcome!

More prompts:

Show me what it's like in the normal day-to-day life of a ruling Blending.

How do adepts train each other in normal circumstances?

Power swap among the protagonist Blending

The protagonist Blending is prevented much more effectively from winning the competitions - and they turn into rebel leaders

Tamrissa escapes her husband much earlier than in canon; this changes the protagonist dynamic

A "normal", lawful-good ruling Blending prepares to hand over power and retire

Power plays among the nobles to set up the competing noble Blendings

Another competing Blending group, at another time, comes together and learns to trust each other

One "different successful Blending" idea: maybe a noble Blending has passed through the competitions and been enthroned. But they're quite weak. So, just in case, to prop them up, a rival common blending was allowed to survive, under Puredan control, and is deployed whenever serious magical power needs to be displayed. But maybe feelings develop between a member of the noble, enthroned Blending, and one of their back-up crew? Or being able to blend allows the actually powerful Blending to throw off Puredan control?

Tell me about the nobles who try to manipulate the candidates

Tamrissa and Jovvi get put in an entirely different group for the Competitions

Tamrissa or Jovvi having their own friendships and collegial relationships outside their own Blending - give them a future that's a little less emotionally claustrophobic

I don't normally suggest time travel, but Tamrissa, Jovvi, and maybe Naran time-travelling to alter the course of events would be really fun, especially if they don't have the full power of their Blending or have to decide to instigate a temporary Blending with strangers

Naran's life before joining the blending is really interesting to me. She's very gifted in her aspect, but in book 6 she started to realise that some things had been kept from her. How did her training go? Or explore her relationships with other practitioners of her aspect, or her expectations about meeting Rion?

Or, as another somewhat cracky original-characters-in-this-world prompt, someone gets invited to an orgy, finds out they're actually being recruited into a Blending? As sinister or as absurd as you like

Outsider perspective on Tamrissa, Jovvi, or any other adepts.

Graceling Realm Series - Kristin Cashore

Adventure Fox

From my sign-up: This is very spoilery for Winterkeep!

I was very fond of the previous books, and then Winterkeep came along and was an absolute gift to me. I'm asking for Adventure Fox because he's delightful and would be great on his own, but this way I can also suggest either Bitterblue/Giddon or Lovisa too.

So, what if Ad does go to Monsea to figure out a new path for foxkind? Does he take other foxes with him, or is he a special envoy? What does he think of Monsea? How do he and Bitterblue negotiate the ethics of his telepathy and his duties to the rest of foxkind? Does he discover previously unknown telepathic species? I'd love his perspective on Monsea getting used to their queen a) alive again b) being engaged c) maybe/maybe not dismantling the monarchy.

I'd also love to see him visit the Dells and meet Fire. (What if his species evolved from a variant of Dellian monster? How do monsters work on him?) I just love Fire a lot and would love to see her again.

And Lovisa. When we learned that Ad's choice to bond with Ferla was driven by a desire to help Lovisa, my heart broke into pieces. Please feel free to break my heart all over again by showing me a scene of Ad trying to help and being misinterpreted, or maybe even accidentally making things worse. Or maybe they interact in future years - for example if Ad goes to Monsea and then comes back at some point as part of a delegation. Please don't give them a fluffy, perfect reconciliation - I am okay with some sort of reconciliation, but I find all the jagged edges in their relationship really meaningful.

More thoughts:
This is the only one of my canons this year I haven't requested before - I hope there's enough to work with even so. After I bought Winterkeep, it sat in the paper bag from the bookstore for a couple of months because I wanted to save it as a special-occasion treat, and I when I finally got around to reading it, I wasn't disappointed. I love how Cashore combines some very fun, indulgent, fantastical things (benevolent telepathic manatees and loyal companion telepathic foxes! in previous books, cool special abilities and literally irresistible beauty!) with a lot of thoughtful character work.

It seems very plausible at the end of Winterkeep that Adventure Fox will go to Monsea. I imagine he'd find it a bit of a shock, not just because of culture clash in general but because of the trauma and memory holes he'd encounter in Bitterblue City. If you follow that route, does he make the journey with other foxes, and if so, what are they like, and do their opinions on how foxes should behave on the Royal Continent match up? Or, if it's just Ad, is he travelling as a secret? Or does Ad decide to stay after all, and if so, does he keep an eye on Lovisa, or find another role for himself? Maybe he considers bonding with someone Lovisa knows and it's extremely complicated for Lovisa (like Nev? I'm up for Lovisa/Nev, btw, but mostly Lovisa/stability).

I suggested breaking my heart over Ad's attempts to smooth over trouble in the Cavenda household. I'd also be interested in a time when he was successful and thought (for a time) that things were working out, or just any time he was able to relax. His life has not been a relaxing one.

I'm pretty fond of everyone, though maybe would prefer Saf is not a major character. I ship Bitterblue and Giddon, and Giddon's deepening friendship with Hava is delightful to me. I like Katsa and Po but would probably prefer an outsider perspective on them than a story from their perspective. (Though Po interacting with Ad, given their similar abilities, would be fascinating. Do Po's moral rules for himself provide some guidance for how Ad should behave on the Royal Continent?)

More prompts:

Maybe the (soon to be remedied?) lack of airships in Monsea is very disappointing for Adventure Fox, but he gets to do something else cool like ride a glider or a gondola or a zip-line

So Bitterblue had succession plans in case she died without heirs, and given her involvement with the Council, I got the impression they were fairly radical succession plans involving less monarchy and more democracy. And now she's confirmed alive and planning to marry and have children. What does that mean for the future of Monsea?

Monsea's natural resources are news to the other kingdoms too. How does that change things with the Council?

I suggested Ad going to Monsea, or interactions with Lovisa, as an either-or thing, but it occurs to me that Lovisa could also visit Monsea as a diplomat later in life, and this could lead to a meeting - which would probably be rather startling for both parties

I also wouldn't mind seeing Lovisa get to relax and have fun too. I believe in her capability to improve the world but she should get to lay down her burdens some time.

Maybe Ad decides he wants to change how humans and foxes live together in Winterkeep.

Love & Legends (Visual Novel)

Helena, MC, Witch Queen, Alain

From my sign-up: It's okay with me if you write Helena + two other characters, rather than all four.

Helena just strikes so many notes I love in fictional characters! Powerful, competent, complex, vulnerable, and okay I also enjoy her beauty. I adore the arc of her choosing to trust and throw her support behind the MC, and how that means facing up to her crimes & how terrible her relationship with the Witch Queen really was, all while developing a relationship with someone who wears her tormentor's face. There's so much hope and weight in this very tropey story.

I really enjoy Helena/the MC's romance, and I'd be down for anything in a range from supportive fluff (getting to live a life together! Making each other happy in lovely little ways!) to warning bells (is Helena's rehabilitation really so straightforward? Maybe the MC sees her as more noble than she is, maybe the road to recovery is even rockier). It's okay if the Witch Queen is just a shadow over a story about Helena/the MC rather than appearing in the present.

I would also love something plotty and either triumphant or twisted, involving the Witch Queen - maybe the Witch Queen captures Helena and the MC has to surrender herself to free them both? Or other kinds of mind games? Or play with the idea of the Witch Queen taking partial possession of the MC.

And I was pretty fond of Alain, whose emotional arc is, after all, very similar to Helena's. I loved the bond between Alain and Helena. MC and Helena escape, and rescue Alain later? Or go back to darkness - show me old fucked-up situations between Helena, Alain, and the Witch Queen.

Any sexual threesomes welcome. Even if she's sympathetic, I prefer the Witch Queen remains an antagonist, especially if she's in a sex scene.

More thoughts:
Love and Legends is an isekai visual romance novel where the main character lands in a fantasy world and is mistaken for the recently-vanquished Big Bad, a sorcerous queen. I've only really played one route (Helena's) and a smattering of seasons for the other characters. (If you're curious, it's freemium but very slow to play if you don't spend money on it.)

So Helena is the Witch Queen's former favourite apprentice, and they had an intense and abusive relationship where the Witch Queen gave Helena knowledge, skills, and purpose, convinced Helena that she was nothing without the Witch Queen, added sexual sadism into the mix, and required Helena to do terrible things in her name. The Witch Queen is vanquished and our protagonist turns up; during a period in which the Witch Queen's spirit occasionally invades the MC's mind, Helena gradually falls in love with this newer, kinder version of the woman she hated almost as much as she loved.

Helena and the MC are adorable together; I love Helena's wonder at finding a happy relationship after she'd convinced herself she never could, and finding someone worthy of protection who feels just as fiercely loyal towards her. Emotional hurt/comfort that echoes canon tone would be welcome, and I also would love to see scenes of Helena exploring new aspects of her magic, with the MC helping - I love magic worldbuilding, and magic used for mundane purposes! For smut, honour bondage would be particularly nice, and also sexual or non-sexual affection and care such as bathing each other, hair brushing, massages etc.

I also love the twisty aspects! Canon takes a fairly straightforward and sanitised route with Helena's redemption arc, but you're welcome to complicate that, with an MC who maybe sees Helena as more intrinsically good (because she needs to) than Helena is, or a Helena whose troubled past makes her unpredictable, withdrawn, or otherwise difficult at times. Dig into just how messed up it could be for Helena to be in love with the person whose face haunts her worst memories.

The Witch Queen is welcome either as an on-stage presence, or just as someone who is never far from Helena and the MC's thoughts. Similarly, a scene between the Witch Queen and Helena in which the MC does not have lines or appear is fine, even if it's pre-canon and the MC hasn't turned up yet - evil sorceresses and their willing or unwilling pupils are a dynamic I love across many canons.

I'd enjoy seeing Alain either as part of a messed-up sexual dynamic involving Alain/Helena/Witch Queen, or during canon, won over to the MC's side, and involved with Helena and the MC either platonically or romantically/sexually.

All kinds of canon divergence would be fun.

Please no readerfic, but other second person styles are fine.

More prompts:

The MC, Helena, and maybe Alain travelling the realm together when peace is achieved

Cooking and potions!

Shenanigans land MC in the fantasy world as if at the start of one of the good side/ retainer routes, but with the memories of several seasons' worth of Helena's route; she schemes to win Helena, Alain, or both of them over to the side of good

More mental influence by the Witch Queen of the MC - or Helena

The MC learns that she can invade the Witch Queen's mind in return; among the ethical issues, this leads her to unpleasant memories

The Witch Queen spies on Helena & the MC and makes plans

The Witch Queen gains the upper hand and takes both Helena/Alain and the MC captive again

Circumstances require the MC to pretend to be the Witch Queen for a mission, with Helena or Alain along for the ride

The MC enlists the help of one of the retainers to make a surprise gift for Helena or Alain

Ritual sex is required for healing magic, either with Helena/MC or Helena/MC/Alain

During the period where the MC is still pretending to be the Witch Queen: Helena, Alain and the Witch Queen work out a complicated plan for defecting to Reiner's side that requires Helena or Alain to get captured by Reiner and for the other two to charge off to "get them back"

Alain sacrifices himself for the MC or Helena, and the MC and Helena time-travel to save him in return.

The Neverending Story - Michael Ende

(no characters nominated)

From my sign-up: It's been an entire year since I last asked for this canon, and I felt incoherent then and have not managed to cohere my thoughts any further - I love this book so much. I want more of its thoughtfulness and absurdity and starry-eyed wonder and humour. I just want to spend more time in this world.

Any of the "stories to be told another time" are a great starting point. I'd truly love exploration of any of them. Or springboard off any other character who appeared (or got a throwaway mention) and tell a continuation of their story. Or: find a way to tell a story that was told in the book as if it was a different story (canon divergence, different perspective) and now is its time.

I admit most of my ideas are for something set in Fantastica, but I'd be interested in BBB's and CCC's future lives as well.

I'm really intrigued by Gaya and Gmork, by lost landscapes, and by different ways to become the hero of your own story.

More thoughts:
Last year I talked a lot about the characters who can move willingly or unwillingly between Fantastica and our world, and these are still ideas that interest me! This time around I've been reflecting how how a visitor to Fantastica is explicitly entering into a story in which they are the hero, and how, when we do this in the real world, we sometimes distort other people into the roles of villains or think of them in terms of their role in our story rather than in terms of their role in their own. (I hope that made sense.) Atreyu, of course, was Bastian's friend as well as a hero in his own right, and those two roles sometimes conflicted. I'd also be interested in a new visitor creating a specific, dark, powerful enemy to defeat, and then either becoming fascinated by that enemy, or becoming reluctant to defeat them and then moving on to the next chapter of their story, or causing havoc in Fantastica through needing that enemy to be The Most Terrible Ever. Some of that happened with Xayide, but a more self-aware take on the rise of an enemy might be interesting.

I love thinking about the idea of following one's heart's desire as a sort of sacred charge, as Grograman discussed with Bastian. I love thinking about Gmork's speech to Atreyu about Fantasticans becoming lies.

I'm also interested in how Fantastica is always changing and always retaining its status quo. I'm interested in taking a closer look at how there are things and patterns in Fantastica that are true for almost all time, and yet Fantastica is entirely reborn and rebuilt in the book - and, it is implied, as been reborn and rebuilt in this way before. Somehow it's possible for the Childlike Empress to assure Atreyu that all the humans who have come to Fantastica and helped it have brought something enriching back to our world, and it's also possible for the City of Old Emperors to exist. Fantastica contains beautiful, ugly, evil, and good things, and I am appreciating anew the ways in which the book allows logical or emotional tension to exist, sitting with it for a spell. I don't know if that's helpful - please ignore if not. On the other hand, I loved so many Fantastican landscapes that could not be appreciated by people other than Bastian, or were destroyed - a way to cheat and preserve them in some way would be welcome.

Stories that play Fantastica "straight" would be welcome - concentrating on a visitor's heroic quest, continuing an unfinished story, or taking literally some other statement of canon fact about how Fantastica and its relation with other world(s) operates. So would something a bit more meta. Maybe someone arrives by portal and is incorporated into a journey (or recruited by Gmork's shadowy masters, or similar)? What about a hero quest gone wrong, where the visitor's desire is not simply to be the hero of their own story, but something darker - a darkness that the Childlike Empress, with her famed neutrality, allows? How would that end?

More prompts:

Continue one of the stories that shall be told another time

Two friends visit Fantastica at once. Or one person from our world follows another there to rescue them

More intricate and wondrous monsters, geographies, peoples, and cultural traditions!

Involve the sphinxes again somehow

"Nothing is lost," she said. "Everything is transformed."

Ways for Fantasticans to make their own stories (by living them rather than telling them?)

Trading something other than memories for wishes

Other Fantasticans' once-in-a-lifetime audience with the Childlike Empress

If something's a lie in Fantastica, what is it in our world?

Use different fantasy tropes - for example, make a Fantastican visitor spend most of their time in a paranormal romance/urban fantasy-based city

I'd also be interested in a subversion of the idea of a foreign visitor arriving in a world to save it through their enlightenment.

Seer and Sword - Victoria Hanley

Landen, Torina, Dahmis

From my sign-up: OT3 plz plz plz plz PLEASE. We already have so many tropes for these three characters. Secret identities! Loyalty kink! Bandit with a heart of gold! Veiled seer! True King! Exiled heirs! Also they all adore each other so much and I just want them to be happy.

The pining is off the charts, and it's already pretty great. So yeah, if you can't quite see a way to make the three-way relationship happen, two of them together while the other is a significant part of the story would also be good! Canon delivered beautifully on pining, loyalty, and heroic deeds and sacrifices. Anything along those lines would be great, whether it involves canon divergence or not.

Maybe Landen and Torina reconnect way, way earlier over the quest to deliver the Sword to Dahmis, and they bond over caring about Dahmis just as much as they reconnect through their past history? Maybe we revisit Landen and Torina several years after the book's end, where, as rulers of Archeld and Bellandra, they are negotiating with Dahmis, but realize they want a lot more than a professional relationship? Anything involving a dramatic peril that one or two characters is in, and the remaining character(s) must save them from, would be so good. Please indulge me in my feelings..

More thoughts:
This is a short middle-grade fantasy novel, part of a trio but effectively standing alone. (I read Healer's Keep a long time ago and have little recollection of it; Light of the Oracle is barely connected.) The plots and characterisation here are not complicated, but I love this book for its absolutely giant helpings of secret identities, pining, and dramatic reveals.

In canon, there's something satisfying about Dahmis' admiration for Torina and how, lacking any indication of reciprocal interest, he doesn't court her. I also like that Torina gets a chance to live and reflect apart from the court, and Landen spends the intervening years honing his skills as a leader. And I love that both Torina and Landen take action to ally themselves with Dahmis - but Torina moves first!

But I'd also love canon divergence, especially if you can include different permutations of the secret identities, foiling of treachery, and dramatic rescues that canon contains. Maybe Landen saves Dahmis' life, or Torina foretells that Vesputo will use the Sword and arranges for Landen to steal it for Dahmis herself. Maybe, at the end of canon events, Landen's name is still not cleared, or something requires Torina to remain in exile for now. Anything that involves bravery or dramatic reveals would be A+.

Dahmis is so charmed by Landen! Landen carries out a dangerous mission for Dahmis and requests only his friendship as a price! Landen wants to literally lean on Dahmis when they're discussing how to hold off an invading army! I can't even. Meanwhile, of course, Dahmis can't think of Torina without admiring her self-possession and her beauty, and Torina and Landen's mutual adoration started from when Landen was given to Torina as a slave and she instantly set him free. Normally I'm not keen on misunderstandings, but here I would be totally keen on "he/she doesn't love me, they love each other,"-type misunderstandings as long as they're resolved. Smut also very welcome, whether it has plot around it or not.

And worldbuilding following on from the end of canon as it stands would also be neat. As I said, I'm very rusty on Healer's Keep, so you're welcome to incorporate that or completely ignore it. Bellandra has been under Archeld's control so long - what's involved in its restoration? How does Torina settle into the role of queen? What other challenges face Dahmis? (I acknowledge a story about Bellandra's restoration may touch on dark/serious decolonisation themes - like Black Jewels, this is another canon where it's a little tricky to poke too hard at the worldbuilding - that's fine as long as there is optimism for the future.)

(Tangent: There's very little information on the political structure of the kingdoms and why High King Dahmis is High King. However, we do know that Dahmis' efforts to unite other kingdoms are an innovation. I wonder if other countries made an agreement with Glavenrell that it would essentially hold off Kareed, since the story begins near the end of a long period of Kareed attempting to expand his rule.)

More prompts:

Torina and Dahmis wrote letters to each other before Vesputo's betrayal; Dahmis has no idea that Vineda is his former correspondent

Dahmis has his own secret identity shenanigans

Dahmis, with Landen on his mind, disguises himself (maybe with a magic disguise?) to seek out anonymous sex; he runs into Landen, who is acting on the same impulse

Established relationship; any two of them in bed together with the third absent but the present two talking about their fantasies for the third

Landen and Torina decide that if Bellandra's independence is to be restored, they cannot marry. While for most of my prompts, I'd prefer happy endings, you can pile on all the angst here

Landen and Torina marry, but cherish the occasions on which all of Torina, Landen, and Dahmis can be in the same place and enjoy each other's company

I'm usually neutral on baby plots, but in this case, something incredibly tropy about Torina carrying either Landen's or Dahmis' child and both of them doting on her would be welcome

Mid-canon: Torina risks herself to carry some warning to Dahmis or Landen, and Vesputo captures her. Landen and Dahmis have to rescue her.

Perhaps, instead of turning from Dahmis when she learns of his alliance with Vesputo, Torina instead plans to drive a wedge between them. What if Bellanes' identity is revealed while Torina's remains obscured?

I would also be up for a Prophecy Makes Them Do It threesome whereby a mysterious (but convincing) omen requires them to fuck, say, for the sake of harmony between nations, and there's angst about unrevealed feelings until they sort out that they all actually do want to be there and the other parties are also okay with it.

I love the idea for these characters of secret trysts where both parties involved are pining after the other and manage to have romantic encounters without being sure of the other's identity. Maybe another magic macguffin can accomplish this!

Previous Black Jewels prompts: Yuletide 2012, Worldbuilding Ex 2017, fffx 2020
Previous Blending Series prompts: fffx 2020, Yuletide 2020
Previous Love & Legends prompts: Chocolate Box 2019, Yuletide 2020
Previous Neverending Story prompts: Worldbuilding 2017, Yuletide 2020
Previous Seer & Sword prompts: Yuletide 2019, fffx 2020, Yuletide 2020 This entry is also posted at https://morbane.dreamwidth.org/46736.html. There are comments. Please comment either here or there.

Dear Yuletide Writer 2020

morbane — Mon, 26 Oct 2020 06:08:21 GMT

Welcome and thank you! I'm sorry this took so long. I'm Morbane at AO3, and this year I have requested The Blending Series, The Seer and the Sword, Psmith, Love & Legends, and The Neverending Story.

General likes/dislikes

Do Not Wants: amnesia, drug abuse & addiction, harm to hands, infidelity
-exceptions: infidelity is fine for Blending, Neverending Story; canon-typical amnesia is fine for Neverending Story.

Likes: I love original characters, outsider character perspectives, and worldbuilding. I love competence and loyalty. I like uplifting and hopeful messages, and protagonists who champion them. I also like genuinely terrible characters and tragic arcs, and villains with strong motivations and critiques of the protagonists' goals. Characters are welcome in any shade of grey. I like seeing characters screw up and then learn (or not) from their mistakes. I love magical realism, dramatic weather, trains, telepathy, and dragons. I like getting a strong sense of time or place. For porn, I love telepathy, praise kink, and awkward-but-not-emotionally-disastrous sex; intense oh-god-I-can't-believe-it's-so-good sex; gentle and loving sex. I love emotional intimacy whether or not it comes with physical intimacy. I love mentors and protegé(e) relationships, and relationships between characters who are juggling multiple identities. I love seeing the relationship between two characters at one point in time, and then seeing it again when the relationship is very different. I'm just as interested in break-ups as get-togethers. I like Big Damn Hero moments, and also days in the life, or stories about people who are just trying to make it by in a weird world. I love it when authors incorporate something about which they have enthusiasm or specialized knowledge, however mundane or weird that thing is.

You're welcome to write in past or present tense, and in first, second, or third person. Epistolary and found-media formats are welcome.

The Blending Series - Sharon Green

(no characters nominated)

From my sign-up: This series is my ridiculous-governmental-system, magical-training-montages, team-of-polyamorous-underdogs catnip! I am very fond of it, possibly because of rather than in spite of its flaws. I would love to read about original characters in this verse, and if you'd prefer to write about existing characters, Jovvi and Tamrissa are particular favourites (either as they are in canon or in a canon divergence plot), or perhaps Naran in the years before the challenges.

More thoughts:
So this is an eight-book series set in a fantasy world where having magical affinity for Spirit, Water, Air, Earth, or Fire is common, and where our main setting of Gandistra is traditionally ruled by a matched - or perhaps match-made - set of masters of these elements, because according to prophesy, that's how Gandistra must be ruled or a terrible calamity will result. Also, every twenty-five years, a new set of adepts has to be selected through competitions.

If you think that this is a very elaborate set-up, you are right, and that is part of its appeal to me, because of course it's become corrupted and of course the practical details are frantically handwaved and of course it's wonderfully ripe for a set of righteous underdogs to come along, overcome their personal hang-ups, and overcome the competition to be The! Best! And! Most! Enlightened! Rulers! Who also have to be a sort-of polycule! Because sex makes their combined magic stronger!

Part of me is laughing in delight at how ridiculous the implications (and sometimes, the plots) get; part of me is really earnestly along for the ride. I love the descriptions of the use of magic at heightened occasions and for mundane tasks; I love the way the series protagonists becomes a tightly-knit team alongside the development of romantic/sexual attractions, not just because of them; I love what's hinted at regarding practical worldbuilding, especially as it relates to governance, and I love the gaps that are left in practical worldbuilding and what scope one has in filling them. What a sandbox!

I seized the opportunity to request this with no characters because worldbuilding & original characters are perennial loves of mine. An original set of characters thrown together in some other competition year would be A+. Another noble group who are meant to play second fiddle to the "correct" group? A selected noble group who actually have consciences? A different underdog group? And such a group negotiating what the sex angle means for them would be fascinating. I do mean negotiating - blissful sex would be welcome, but so would other more complicated reactions that allow for dignity/agency.

But! I enjoyed the canon characters too. I liked Jovvi's deep ingrained distrust of authority, how she approached the ongoing problem of exercising consensual/ethical control over others, and her evolving sense of what it meant to her to be the authority. I liked Tamrissa's aggressive power that increasingly came from a position of strength rather than fear, and I liked watching her learn to trust others around her. I found Rion's earnestness appealing, found Lorand pleasant enough, and found Vallant and Naran appealing mostly when they appealed to characters I was more interested in (sorry). So if you want to write about canon characters, go for it, please, and I hope I am giving you enough to work with! (Canon ships are fine, though please fewer misunderstandings between Vallant and Tamrissa. Jovvi/Tamrissa is also welcome, as are other relationships within the Blending.)

More prompts:

Naran's life before joining the blending is really interesting to me. She's very gifted in her aspect, but in book 6 she started to realise that some things had been kept from her. How did her training go? Or explore her relationships with other practitioners of her aspect, or her expectations about meeting Rion?

Both our protagonist blending and Kambil's blending deal with the revelation that they are expendable and escape/go underground. What does that mean for Gandistra?

Show me what it's like in the normal day-to-day life of a ruling Blending.

What happens to the middle-plus adepts?

How do adepts train each other in normal circumstances?

Power swap among the protagonist Blending

The protagonist Blending is prevented much more effectively from winning the competitions - and they turn into rebel leaders

Tamrissa escapes her husband much earlier than in canon; this changes the protagonist dynamic

A normal, lawful-good ruling Blending prepares to hand over power and retire

Power plays among the nobles to set up the competing noble Blendings

For an especially dark prompt: dubcon or noncon in play among a competing Blending, maybe with the Spirit member abusing their aspect, or several of the members ganging up on another.

Seer and Sword - Victoria Hanley

Landen, Torina, Dahmis

From my sign-up: A prince enslaved, a princess betrayed, the secret identities they adopt, and the noble king whose ally they become - who seriously has a crush on them both. More please? Especially, more of the OT3? There is so much pining, and there can always be more pining, but I'd also love more adventure, or post-canon choices, or canon divergence, or a happy (or bittersweet) resolution to the OT3 pining.

More thoughts:
So I got a lovely fic for this last year, but I would like more, please. This is a short middle-grade fantasy novel, part of a trio but effectively standing alone. (I read Healer's Keep a long time ago and have little recollection of it; I read Light of the Oracle most recently, but that's extremely different.) The plots and characterisation here are not complicated, but I love this book for its absolutely giant helpings of secret identities, pining, and dramatic reveals.

In canon, there's something satisfying about Dahmis' admiration for Torina and how, lacking any indication of reciprocal interest, he doesn't court her. I also like that Torina gets a chance to live and reflect apart from the court, and Landen spends the intervening years honing his skills as a leader. And I love that both Torina and Landen take action to ally themselves with Dahmis - but Torina moves first!

But I'd also love canon divergence, especially if you can include different permutations of the secret identities, foiling of treachery, and dramatic rescues that canon contains. Maybe Landen saves Dahmis' life, or Torina foretells that Vesputo will use the Sword and arranges for Landen to steal it for Dahmis herself. Maybe, at the end of canon events, Landen's name is still not cleared, or something requires Torina to remain in exile for now. Anything that involves bravery or dramatic reveals would be A+.

I enjoy shipping between any combination of the three characters, and especially, all of them together. Dahmis is so charmed by Landen! Landen carries out a dangerous mission for Dahmis and requests only his friendship as a price! Landen wants to literally lean on Dahmis when Dahmis is asking him if he's sure of his plan against the Sliivites! I can't even. Meanwhile, of course, Dahmis can't think of Torina without admiring her self-possession and her beauty, and Torina and Landen's mutual adoration started from when Landen was given to Torina as a slave and she instantly set him free. Normally I'm not keen on misunderstandings, but here I would be totally keen on "he/she doesn't love me, they love each other,"-type misunderstandings as long as they're resolved. Smut also welcome, whether it has plot around it or not.

And worldbuilding following on from the end of canon as it stands would also be neat. As I said, I'm very rusty on Healer's Keep, so you're welcome to incorporate that or ignore it. Bellandra has been under Archeld's control so long - what's involved in its restoration? How does Torina settle into the role of queen? What other challenges face Dahmis? (I acknowledge a story about Bellandra's restoration may touch on dark/serious decolonisation themes - that's fine as long as there is optimism for the future.)

More prompts:

Torina and Dahmis wrote letters to each other before Vesputo's betrayal; Dahmis has no idea that Vineda is his former correspondent

Dahmis has his own secret identity shenanigans

Dahmis, with Landen on his mind, disguises himself (maybe with a magic disguise?) to seek out anonymous sex; he runs into Landen, who is acting on the same impulse

Established relationship; any two of them in bed together with the third absent but the present two talking about their fantasies for the third

Landen and Torina decide that if Bellandra's independence is to be restored, they cannot marry. While for most of my prompts, I'd prefer happy endings, you can pile on all the angst here

Landen and Torina marry, but cherish the occasions on which all of Torina, Landen, and Dahmis can be in the same place and enjoy each other's company

I'm usually neutral on baby plots, but in this case, something incredibly tropy about Torina carrying either Landen's or Dahmis' child and both of them doting on her would be welcome

Mid-canon: Torina risks herself to carry some warning to Dahmis or Landen, and Vesputo captures her. Landen and Dahmis have to rescue her.

Perhaps, instead of turning from Dahmis when she learns of his alliance with Vesputo, Torina instead plans to drive a wedge between them. What if Bellanes' identity is revealed while Torina's remains obscured?

Psmith - P. G. Wodehouse

Rupert Psmith, Mike Jackson

From my sign-up: I love the deep comfort and delight these two have in each other. I'd love to see them on an era-appropriate adventure, close to home or very far away; involve them in local politics and community again, or devise a minor or domestic issue that especially calls for Psmith's eloquence and Mike's empathy. Or send them to another setting - fantasy or sci-fi welcome - or, whatever else you do, just focus on how much Psmith approves of Mike and how Mike appreciates Psmith and I will be very happy.

More thoughts:
Although all four Psmith books are charming, I'm especially fond of Mike and Psmith and Psmith in the City, because they have the most Mike in them. I enjoy Psmith as an amiable agent of chaos and/or purpose, who is always two steps ahead except when, out of polite curiosity or a sense of fair play, he allows circumstances to catch up with him, but his deep and unstrained friendship with Mike is truly a joy. I love how cheerfully and frequently he showers Mike with compliments, and seems to genuinely regard Mike as a solid cornerstone of an otherwise capricious world, while Mike obviously thinks the world of Psmith and provides both an appreciative audience and a steadying influence for his schemes.

I'd prefer a story that handwaves the canon love interests (they're welcome to show in platonic roles) and either ships Psmith and Mike, or at least focuses on their platonic closeness. I love it when Psmith's stoicism, quick wits, and sense of the absurd get a chance to shine - there's something delightful about how relaxed he is about confounding a social norm or playing a (mild!) prank and then observing events unfold, with a high confidence, always borne out, that nothing can really go too wrong. But I'd prefer that any victims of his whims are not harmed or deeply upset, or are merely receiving their just desserts. I also enjoy a study in the contrast between Psmith's snobbish tendencies and how genuinely interested he is in his fellow man. And I also love it when Mike's best qualities drive the action - his sense of fairness, his willingness to help others, his readiness to meet what comes, his relative equanimity, and his ability to reconsider a previously-formed opinion.

I don't know a lot about the historical setting of the canon, and I enjoy seeing it through Mike and Psmith's eyes; I enjoyed the local politics subplot of City, for example, and the tenements issue in Journalist - another focus like that would be welcome. More international cricketing adventures, different possible careers, different travel around the world? And I also love seeing fantastical worlds though Psmith and Mike's eyes, especially if the different settings allow for displays of loyalty and attempted self-sacrifice from either party.

For shipfic, I'd enjoy many things. One specific thing, because I feel Mike/Psmith is especially suited for it: although I love and welcome pining, I'd really love to see them at that very brief stage of a relationship when they're in love and one of them has figured it out and is secure in the other's affections, but the other person doesn't yet quite know/hasn't quit confessed. Just that blissful feeling when one has recently realised that their feelings are or will be returned and is absolutely basking in how much they adore the other person, how great they are, how likely all their daydreams are to come true - proud and a little possessive and just happy. I think this would be easier to do with Psmith than Mike, because Mike spends less time reflecting on his own emotions, but any way you could swing it would be great. Pair it with some sort of peril and rescue plot, where the person in whose head we are is very keen to get to the declaration of love part but there's this pesky danger in the way? That would be amazing. Again, this is NOT the only kind of shippy fic I want, it's just one that has presently taken hold of my imagination and I can't seem to describe it in more precise terms.

I'd also prefer for a shippy fic to be light on simple endearments from either Mike or Psmith; I would prefer them to be sparing (I see Mike as likely to be embarrassed, most of the time or at least at first, by 'darling', 'beloved', etc, and Psmith likely to prefer more elaborate compliments) and therefore utterly electric when they land.

More prompts:

Plausible careers are welcome but so are implausible ones - maybe Mike's father has had a Whim and dragged Mike and Psmith into it, maybe you just make them musicians or inventors or society hosts or something with as much or as little explanation as you choose

One is sent on a long journey with some danger involved and the other sets off after them. Dream sharing?

First-time sex leads to a misunderstanding that it was casual only, leading to pining, leading to resolution of pining and even better sex

I don't think I'm as enthusiastic for hurt/comfort as the rest of the fandom, sorry, and am not naturally into sickfic or whump. But one of this pair saving the other from peril, or taking on a difficulty (emotional or physical) to save the other, are both A+

Crossovers - Narnia? Oz? MCU? Pern? Anything I've written or received or prompted for is fair game.

Something fantastical or steampunk-y in the otherwise-canon setting? Psmith as diplomatic representative to aliens/beings from another dimension? Psmith very slightly detached from the ordinary course of time? Mike discovers Excalibur?

A setting in which either of them acts at the other's bodyguard - maybe a world in which athletes like Mike have very high status, or where Psmith is a diplomat or politician or some sort of noble?

A much older, happily together Mike and Psmith, perhaps from an outsider perspective or competently mentoring others.

Love & Legends (Visual Novel)

Helena, MC, Witch Queen

From my sign-up: Evil sexy mentors, identity issues/dopplegangers, and magic - yes please! The dark backstory between Helena and her mistress the Witch Queen is fascinating to me, as is Helena's healing from it; I love the supportive relationship between Helena and the MC against the background of that history; and the wary feelings that the MC and the Witch Queen have for each other are also fascinating to me. Basically anything focusing on these character dynamics would be excellent.

More thoughts:
Love and Legends is an isekai visual romance novel where the main character lands in a fantasy world and is mistaken for the recently-vanquished Big Bad, a sorcerous queen. I'm afraid I've only really played one route (Helena's) and am still in season 6 of 9 released, but what I lack in canon completion I promise I make up for in enthusiasm. (If you're curious, it's freemium but very slow to play if you don't spend money on it.)

So Helena is the Witch Queen's former favourite apprentice, and they had an intense and abusive relationship where the Witch Queen gave Helena knowledge, skills, and purpose, convinced Helena that she was nothing without the Witch Queen, added sexual sadism into the mix, and required Helena to do terrible things in her name. The Witch Queen is vanquished and our protagonist turns up; during a period in which the Witch Queen's spirit occasionally invades the MC's mind, Helena gradually falls in love with this newer, kinder version of the woman she hated almost as much as she loved.

Helena and the MC are adorable together; I love Helena's wonder at finding a happy relationship after she'd convinced herself she never could, and finding someone worthy of protection who feels just as fiercely loyal towards her. Emotional hurt/comfort that echoes canon tone would be welcome, and I also would love to see scenes of Helena exploring new aspects of her magic, with the MC helping - I love magic worldbuilding, and magic used for mundane purposes! For smut, honour bondage would be particularly nice, and also sexual or non-sexual affection and care such as bathing each other, hair brushing, massages etc.

I also love the twisty aspects! Canon takes a fairly straightforward and sanitised route with Helena's redemption arc, but you're welcome to complicate that, with an MC who maybe sees Helena as more intrinsically good (because she needs to) than Helena is, or a Helena whose troubled past makes her unpredictable, withdrawn, or otherwise difficult at times. Dig into just how messed up it could be for Helena to be in love with the person whose face haunts her worst memories.

The Witch Queen is welcome either as an on-stage presence, or just as someone who is never far from Helena and the MC's thoughts. Similarly, a scene between the Witch Queen and Helena in which the MC does not have lines or appear is fine, even if it's pre-canon and the MC hasn't turned up yet - evil sorceresses and their willing or unwilling pupils are a dynamic I love across many canons.

I didn't request him specifically, but I'd also enjoy seeing Alain, either as part of a messed-up sexual dynamic involving Alain/Helena/Witch Queen, or during canon, won over to the MC's side, and involved with Helena and the MC either platonically or romantically/sexually.

No name preference for MC. Please no readerfic, but other second person styles are fine.

More prompts:

The MC and Helena travelling the realm together when peace is achieved

Cooking and potions!

Shenanigans land MC in the fantasy world as if at the start of one of the good side/ retainer routes, but with the memories of several seasons' worth of Helena's route; she schemes to win Helena (and Alain?) over to the side of good

More mental influence by the Witch Queen of the MC - or Helena

The MC learns that she can invade the Witch Queen's mind in return; among the ethical issues, this leads her to unpleasant memories

The Witch Queen spies on Helena & the MC and makes plans

The Witch Queen gains the upper hand and takes both Helena and the MC captive again

Circumstances require the MC to pretend to be the Witch Queen for a mission, with Helena along for the ride

The MC enlists the help of one of the retainers to make a surprise gift for Helena

Ritual sex is required for healing magic, either with Helena/MC or Helena/MC/Alain.

The Neverending Story - Michael Ende

(no characters nominated)

From my sign-up: This is one of my favourite books in the world. I love the scope of Fantastica and its myriad array of creatures, and I love that there can be conflict between those creatures, and consequences to the stories our hero so easily spins. Some things to explore: new visitors to Fantastica; records of Fantasticas that existed in another visitor's time; intertwined adventures, post-Bastian, for the characters Bastian met; lies escaping Fantastica; ways for Fantasticans to create their own stories by living them rather than telling them.

More thoughts:
It's hard to describe how much I love this book, since I read it before my teens and it has delighted me every time I've come back to it. I love Xayide and Uyulala and Gaya, the Dark Princess, and the sphinxes. I love thinking about the idea of following one's heart's desire as a sort of sacred charge, as Grograman discussed with Bastian, I love thinking about Gmork's speech to Atreyu about Fantasticans becoming lies, and I love thinking about the different ways hinted at to travel in and out of Fantastica.

I often re-read The Neverending Story and want answers to particular puzzles, but on this particular re-read, what has struck me most is appreciation for paradoxes and things that shouldn't exist together and do. How there are things and patterns in Fantastica that are true for almost all time, and yet Fantastica is entirely reborn and rebuilt in the book - and, it is implied, as been reborn and rebuilt in this way before. Somehow it's possible for the Childlike Empress to assure Atreyu that all the humans who have come to Fantastica and helped it have brought something enriching back to our world, and it's also possible for the City of Old Emperors to exist. Fantastica contains beautiful, ugly, evil, and good things, and I am appreciating anew the ways in which the book allows logical or emotional tension to exist, sitting with it for a spell. I don't know if that's helpful - please ignore if not. On the other hand, I loved so many Fantastican landscapes that could not be appreciated by people other than Bastian, or were destroyed - a way to cheat and preserve them in some way would be welcome.

Stories that play Fantastica "straight" would be welcome - concentrating on a visitor's heroic quest, continuing an unfinished story, or taking literally some other statement of canon fact about how Fantastica and its relation with other world(s) operates. So would something a bit more meta. Maybe someone arrives by portal and is incorporated into a journey (or recruited by Gmork's shadowy masters, or similar)? What about a hero quest gone wrong, where the visitor's desire is not simply to be the hero of their own story, but something darker - a darkness that the Childlike Empress, with her famed neutrality, allows? How would that end?

More prompts:

Continue one of the stories that shall be told another time

Two friends visit Fantastica at once. Or one person from our world follows another there to rescue them

I want to know the story of a lie that crosses over into our world! Is there a path to redemption/healing?

How does Gmork cross between worlds, and what other creatures can do this in the same way he does?

More intricate and wondrous monsters, geographies, peoples, and cultural traditions!

Involve the sphinxes again somehow

"Nothing is lost," she said. "Everything is transformed."

Ways for Fantasticans to make their own stories

Trading something other than memories for wishes.

Previous Blending Series prompts: fffx 2020
Previous Love & Legends prompts: Chocolate Box 2019
Previous Neverending Story prompts: Worldbuilding 2017
Previous Psmith prompts: fffx 2020
Previous Seer & Sword prompts: Yuletide 2019, fffx 2020 This entry is also posted at https://morbane.dreamwidth.org/46578.html. There are comments. Please comment either here or there.

Yuletide Largesse and Once Upon a Fic

morbane — Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:11:54 GMT

It is never too late to talk about awesome things, right? People were very generous to me this recent Yuletide and I have much to celebrate there.

I received two stories for the fairy tale The Lute Player - one an intricate, unsettling, seamless meld with Sir Orfeo, and one a more irreverent, but equally heartfelt story breathing life into the heroine especially. I love how the two stories expand the tale along such different axes. I also received:

- an incredibly indulgent threesome story for The Seer and the Sword, a slight but fun YA fantasy that has given me very shippy feelings since I read it half my life ago;

-a rich, strange, and fascinating story from Odile's perspective for the ballet Swan Lake;

-and a fun and intense worldbuilding snippet for Hive Mind, based on the very latest canon that had come out just weeks before Yuletide reveals (allowing me to devour it).

Details below the cut!

A song for three voices (2965 words) by Quillori
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Lute Player (Fairy Tale), Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Summary: He has waited a long time for ransom or rescue.

-This was structured so carefully and had a wonderful, ominous atmosphere. It finished with just the right balance between arriving at a clear stopping point, and ambiguity about what had happened and what would happen next. I loved how it both leaned into fantastical aspects and made the characters more human.

The Lute-Player's Daughter (2006 words) by avani
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Lute Player (Fairy Tale), Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: King/Queen
Additional Tags: Female Character of Color, Fairy Tale Retellings, Alternate Universe - Setting Change
Summary: The lute Ghoshavati was the stuff of legends; played in the hand of a master such as Udayana, it could tame the fiercest of beasts and bend the elements to mortal will. Udayana’s daughter, however, who found herself presented with it, was nothing of the sort.

-The heroine here was a delight - resourceful and relatable, cheeky and courageous. I loved this angle on both the protagonists - how they met as children and grew a great deal over the course of the story. And the setting change was great! The combination with the Udayana was also a seamless and fascinating blend.

Overtaken (2526 words) by ShadedTopaz
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Лебединое озеро - Чайковски | Swan Lake - Tchaikovsky
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Odette/Odile, odile/siegfried
Characters: Odette, Odile
Summary: What happens when a sorceress is caught up in a spell?

-Odile's perspective was really immersive; she felt properly non-human (in this version where she is a fairy). I loved the extra worldbuilding to make the circumstances make sense, and in some parts, make them stranger. And especially the idea that the lake was a boundary between worlds. I was also really touched to get this because it was written by an offline friend, with whom I saw a performance of Swan Lake in November.

what we lost in the ashes, we'll find in the flames (1132 words) by misura
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Healer and Seer Series - Victoria Hanley
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Vineda Archelda/Landen of Bellandra/Dahmis
Additional Tags: POV Second Person, Sexual Fantasy, No Plot/Plotless, Yuletide Treat
Summary: You want them both.

-This is a story this fandom really needed, okay. Or I needed it and can't distinguish between the two, also possible. I just wanted my mature noble king pining for his mysterious gifted adviser AND his mysterious brave outlaw, who happen to be pining for each other. And I got it! In second person!

Breakaway (1949 words) by burglebezzlement
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hive Mind Series - Janet Edwards
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Amber (Hive Mind), Original Telepath Character
Additional Tags: Major spoilers through all of Borderline, telepaths, Telepath backchannel communication, Good Manners, canon-typical discussion of prior threatened (but not completed) imprint removal, telepath genetics and selective breeding, trauma aftermath, Hive Genex, Worldbuilding
Summary: Amber isn't the newest telepath anymore.

-You know the feeling when you finish the latest instalment of an ongoing series and you just immediately want more? This was me getting it, or that's how it felt. burglebezzlement's snippet follows directly on from the most recent Hive Mind book, creatively expanding the worldbuilding in a way that felt really plausible to me. burglebezzlement was also my main recipient for Yuletide 2019, and was just as gracious a recipient as they were an author.

I also have a second reason for mentioning fairy tales: sign-ups are open for Once Upon a Fic, the fairy tales / legends / ballads / urban legends / myths / rhymes exchange I help benedict run. They close on the 19th. I'm extremely excited for this exchange - I tend to struggle each year with writing and then come out with something I'm really proud of. And people's interpretations are so creative!

This year I'm asking for the following stories:
-The Cat Who Became a Queen - summary: His wife? A CAT. Deceptions and shenanigans and goodheartedness.
-Childe Rowland - a classic eerie fairyland quest! I want to explore it
-Lokasenna - look I just want to roll around in angry mythology!Loki feelings and the tragedy of it all
-East of the Sun, West of the Moon - It has bears AND fantastical locations AND personified elements AND a strange courtship and redemption! what's not to love
-The Green Knight - meet-cutes and dream technology! and more goodheartedness (though some spite as well) (Danish fairy tale, not Gawain's encounter)

Come write one of those for me! :P Or come write other things for other people. I'm not picky. Just come play - once_upon_fic. This entry is also posted at https://morbane.dreamwidth.org/45722.html. There are comments. Please comment either here or there.

Dear Yuletide Writer 2019

morbane — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 11:08:59 GMT

Hello! I'm Morbane on AO3. Thank you for reading!

This year's fandoms:
-Hive Mind (Amber, Claire - either)
-Sucker Punch (Rocket, Sweet Pea)
-The Chain - Fleetwood Mac
-The Lute Player - Fairy Tale (Queen)
-Swan Lake - ballet (Odile, Odette)
-Healer and Seer Series - Hanley (Torina, Dahmis, Landen)

Do-Not-Wants: harm to hands, addiction and substance abuse, amnesia*.
Additional DNW, for Lute Player: narrative support for religious conversion as a justification for war.
Additional DNW, for Healer and Seer: infidelity.
*Amnesia is OK generally for Healer and Seer, and is OK to be mentioned for Hive Mind if part of a background plot involving personality resets.

I would prefer not to receive interactive fiction. My ideal gift length for this challenge is between 200 and 20,000 words. (Drabbles can be hit-or-miss for me, so someone else might appreciate your effort more; if your story needs to be longer then 20,000 then go forth intrepid writer and follow your muse, but all else being equal, l like reading a lot of different things on the first day the collection opens.)

General likes

I love original characters, outsider character perspectives, and worldbuilding. I love competence and loyalty. I like uplifting and hopeful messages, and protagonists who champion them. I also like genuinely terrible characters and tragic arcs, and villains with strong motivations and critiques of the protagonists' goals. Characters are welcome in any shade of grey. I like seeing characters screw up and then learn (or not) from their mistakes. I love magical realism, dramatic weather, trains, telepathy, and dragons. I like getting a strong sense of time or place. For porn, I love telepathy, praise kink, and awkward-but-not-emotionally-disastrous sex; intense oh-god-I-can't-believe-it's-so-good sex; gentle and loving sex. I love emotional intimacy whether or not it comes with physical intimacy. I love mentors and protegé(e) relationships, and relationships between characters who are juggling multiple identities. I love seeing the relationship between two characters at one point in time, and then seeing it again when the relationship is very different. I'm just as interested in break-ups as get-togethers. I like Big Damn Hero moments, and also days in the life, or stories about people who are just trying to make it by in a weird world. I love it when authors incorporate something about which they have enthusiasm or specialized knowledge, however mundane or weird that thing is.

You're welcome to write in past or present tense, and in first, second, or third person. Epistolary and found-media formats are welcome.

Hive Mind Series - Janet Edwards

Amber, Claire

From my sign-up: Just one of these characters appearing is fine! This canon combines two things I adore: mundane, textured worldbuilding, and tropey, special protagonist telepaths whose abilities are crucial to the function of their society. I am so sold, so basically anything about either of these two characters would be great!

I liked seeing Amber's understanding of the Hive and how it works gradually expand, and I love that her thoughts on freedom and authority become gradually more complicated over the series as she settles into her role. Ethical quandaries welcome, though please no darker than the series itself. Or maybe she discovers a new side to her telepathic abilities - how does she handle it? I'd also enjoy seeing her interact with people outside her team, or not just in the context of being a telepath on duty. Lucas/Amber shipping welcome, but I'd prefer something with worldbuilding in it to a pure PWP or shipfic.

From what we see of Claire, she's both fascinating and impressive - the telepath role comes with immense pressure and she fulfilled it all her life. I'd love to get an impression of protocols and procedures from her early telepath days, and interactions (at whatever distance) with her fellow telepaths and with Hive authority. I'd love a story about Claire and her team figuring out the rules that Amber's team takes for granted - or possibly, having to deal with a rule or protocol that is obsolete by Amber's time.

If you do want to include both characters, some ideas: a case from late in Claire's life has an impact on Amber, and in dealing with it, Amber learns more about Claire; or, in parallel, two very similar cases and the different ways Claire and Amber handle them.

More prompts:

Another plot about characters transferring between Hives?

More about family and friend relationships outside Amber's or Claire's unit?

What other groups, like the Ramblers, are officially somewhat deviant but unofficially permitted for the good of the Hive?

Who watches the watchers? What are the self-governance measures for the leaders of the Hive and those who have access to the most information?

What was Claire's Sorting like, and her early days? What was the dynamic between the telepaths who existed at the time she was learning to be a telepath?

Possibly darker: What level of selective breeding is practiced or permitted within the Hives?

How do other Hives handle telepaths, or do they have more occurrences of different special mental/physical traits? Perhaps through Amber or Claire coming to learn about such things.

The idea that knowledge of the solar system is restricted gave me pause. Wild headcanon theory: a large contingent of humanity left to settle throughout the galaxy, and those that were left behind were those who were psychologically or otherwise unsuited to leaving Earth. Play with that?

As well as the ongoing survival of humanity, one of the principles of the Hive system seems to be a lighter/sustainable footprint on the Earth. Do the Hives engage in any active stewardship of, say, rare animals or ecosystems outside the Hives?

Are there any cultural myths about earth spirits, or phenomena like earthquakes, to go along with the Hunter and Light Angel mythos?

Amber is no longer the newest telepath.

More general thoughts: I'm having a hard time coming up worldbuilding prompts that don't require (as far as I can tell) lots of plotting and planning, but I really would be happy with a day in the life that has some worldbuilding mixed in! And I do like Amber, and Amber and Lucas' relationship. Regarding that, I love how quickly and confidently each supports the other, and lightens their mood, when one of them is experiencing stress or doubts. I love that despite seeing herself as essentially ordinary, Amber doesn't feel any kind of inadequacy over how devoted Lucas is to her.

I plan to read Borderline as soon as it comes out but do not expect a story to be Borderline-compliant.

Sucker Punch (2011)

Rocket, Sweet Pea

From my sign-up: I love this world and I love these characters, their anger and love for each other and the size of the fight in them. I love that each explicitly chooses her own story - Sweet Pea stepping out of the chair, leaving; Rocket, running away (however much she regrets it), sacrificing herself. I would love fix-its and alternate universes and canon divergences, and I would love backstory and moments in the canon worlds and giving even more emotion to their tragedy and hope.

What were the other worlds like for the characters who weren't Baby Doll? What seemed real to them? What were the stories, before and after, of the worlds whose conflicts they entered? (Is Baby Doll's dancing truly mesmerizing, or is that only a metaphor/coincidence?)

In all three world levels, the women face incredible challenges, but their apparent power to face those challenges increases from asylum to club to combat party. What about a level beyond the world of open military conflict - what might that look like?

I like Baby Doll, but I'm also interested in a still-fantastical AU without her. Or one day: Sweet Pea comes back for Baby Doll (and possibly Rocket, if it's the asylum world and maybe she isn't dead).

More prompts:

Rocket or Sweet Pea's perspective on the worlds their battles take place on.

One of the girls isn't real, or is a ghost, or, not all of them exist in the same world at the same time.

The club is a brief mission, not an extended one.

Changeling/ Dark faerie AU. Time travel shenanigans. Groundhog day. Angels and demons AU. Circus AU. Psychic powers AU.

Something that blends the world levels in some way instead of alternating between them.

Rocket fix-it! EVERYBODY FIX-IT. Even maybe Baby Doll's sister fix-it?

Denizens of the other worlds show up to rescue the five main characters.

Different meanings for map, fire, knife, key, mystery.

None of the girls die/are overcome; they are scattered across worlds instead.

Sweet Pea making a life for herself later.

Crossovers or fusions with other rare canons I know!

More general thoughts: This is a polarising movie and I'm one who really enjoys it. I love the different fantasy worlds and the bitter, brutal glamour of the club; I love Baby Doll's and Sweet Pea's grief and anger that carries through the asylum setting. I love the way the themes of self-actualization and sacrifice are used.

You're welcome to disregard the final scene between Baby Doll and the High Roller; I prefer what the film said without it, and as it was unrated, it wasn't part of the movie I saw first in cinemas.

OK with Sweet Pea/Rocket shipping but please don't give me a Sweet Pea/Rocket PWP - something else as well, please! Also up for Rocket/Baby Doll, Sweet Pea/Baby Doll, Blondie/Amber.

I got a great story for Sucker Punch last year, but in this case, that just made me more excited to request it again - people who will write this canon for me are out there! Yessss!

The Chain - Fleetwood Mac (Song)

(no characters nominated)

From my sign-up: I love the atmosphere of this song. I love the way the wind and shadows and sunrise both ground the speaker in a particular place and moment, and somehow also manage to give it grandeur. I love the drama of the ultimatum, how simple and how open to interpretation it is. I've been asking for this song in the Jukebox exchange for several years; I figured I'd switch it up and try Yuletide this time.

I'd welcome a completely mundane expansion of the story of the speaker and the person they're addressing, fleshing out the characters. I'd also love something fantastical, perhaps springing off either 'running in the shadows' or 'you will never break the chain'. What lies have been told (on either side)? Why is this the moment? Flawed characters are welcome but I'd love the sense of big, complicated feelings to come through - I'm not sure I'd enjoy something for this song with characters that are merely petty and mockable.

More prompts:

What are the lies?

Why damn the dark and the light?

What if the chain does keep them together?

What if the 'you' being addressed is plural?

Dark contracts with the Fae? Something IN SPACE? Something in a particular real-world setting or time you're very fond of?

When the person (?) said they will never break the chain, is that a promise or a threat?

More general thoughts: The open-ended nature of this canon makes it hard to prompt for - I want to see your interpretation!

I enjoy stories for songs that follow the general mood and sense, and I enjoy stories for songs that make sure all the lyrics are accounted for, and I enjoy stories for songs that focus on one particular line or metaphor and are basically written around that.

(If you're wondering why this particular song, out of many I've asked for in Jukebox several times, one reason is that I had the joy of seeing Fleetwood Mac in concert in September, and they opened with this, and so my love for it is both long-held and current.)

The Lute Player (Fairy Tale)

Queen

From my sign-up: I love this sparse story for its dramatic identity porn and also for the queen's immense courage and skill, but there's so much in the gaps and I want to know all of it.

Taking the story at face value: Was the queen always a musician? What other skills did she have that her husband underestimated? How did she come up with her plan, and how did she weigh it up? What was the queen and king's relationship like, going forward?

Complicating the story: The source I'm most familiar with (linked below) justifies the king's war, but I'm dubious. How does the queen feel about it? And then the king wants her to sell off his castles - is that going to work? I don't get an impression of the king as a wise and competent ruler, and also the queen doesn't trust his ministers, so possibly he hasn't surrounded himself with competent advisors either. I'm fascinated to know more about this court and also the diplomatic and economic tensions in this region of kingdoms!

Setting AUs welcome. Genderswapping the first king would also be welcome!

Fairy tale in the Lang Violet Fairy Book:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/641/641-h/641-h.htm#link2H_4_0009

More prompts:

In this version, though you don't have to follow it, it was three years between the king getting captured and the queen finding out what had happened to him. Why was his fate such a mystery? What did the queen do, what changes did she undergo, during that time? Was it difficult to keep the throne?

What other plans did the queen consider and discard?

Just an extrapolation of one of the scenes that are turning points would be good: the king leaving for war, and the queen's thoughts and expectations. The first bad news, and how the court adjusted to it. The king's thoughts on approaching his home again at last.

This is a fairy tale with no magic. What might it look like with magic?

Why did the queen have to, or choose to, keep up her disguise after rescuing the king?

Setting AUs are welcome as long as the sense of the stakes remains. Or blend in elements from a different fairy tale (possibly another one I've written or requested before?).

I also would just like a sense of setting, full stop. Give hints about these peoples' art, music, history, politics, architecture (and yes, beliefs)...

More characters in general would be lovely. Ministers? People at the foreign king's court who helped the queen?

I am not that interested in the king falling in love with the lute player, but I am interested in their developing friendship (and the queen's side of it) and what aspects of that relationship they were able to keep, going forward.

More general thoughts: I've requested this story several times in the Once Upon a Fic exchange and once in Fandom5k; my prompts there may be helpful to you (though probably pretty similar). Regarding the DNW of religious conversion as a justification for war, including it in the story (or not) is fine, I just don't want "but of course we must convert these people" to be treated as unambiguously correct.

Лебединое озеро - Чайковски | Swan Lake - Tchaikovsky

Odile, Odette

From my sign-up: You're welcome to focus only on one of these two characters, but I'd prefer both at least be mentioned. The core story of this ballet is wonderfully dramatic and stirring, but there's so much to expand, explore, or complicate, and of course you can pick and choose among the variants in plot.

I'm fascinated by the character of Odile. What's in it for her? Is she a willing participant in von Rothbart's schemes, or coerced, or maybe playing her own game? Any take on her from 'as bad as she's drawn' to highly sympathetic is welcome. What were her interactions with Odette like before the encounter with Siegfried? In a version where von Rothbart is defeated and killed and the swans are freed, what happens to Odile, or what might happen?

Odette! What is it like for her to be cursed? Tell me about her relationships with the other swans - or Odile - or von Rothbart! Expand on how she fell into von Rothbart's captivity - or make up your own version. If following a 'tragic' ending where the swans are freed by Siegfried and Odette drowning, tell me about the feelings that led to that moment.

Other ideas: Odette and Odile are exes. Odette and Odile are sisters. Or Siegfried is also a woman - and if so, I'd love a study of their three different roles in contrast. Setting AUs welcome, and so is a story that stretches out the very short timeframe of the ballet's events into something much longer.

More prompts:

If both Odile and Odette survive, what is their relationship in the future?

Filling out the setting would be wonderful, or hinting at a specific time (or era) and place (or region).

I'm interested in Siegfried as someone on the cusp of a different point in his life - someone who is resisting entry into adulthood, and then passes swiftly through love and tragedy like some kind of sublimation. Tell me about all the emotional rollercoaster of these, basically, two days.

Or draw it out! Maybe Siegfried and Odette's courtship has been going on for years.

What are Odile's own hopes? Where do Odile and von Rothbart come from? Has von Rothbart mastered magic through some kind of devilish bargain, or because of study, or because he is not an ordinary human? How does Odile fit into any of this?

Who are the other maidens who surround Odette?

Mix in some elements of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale of the seven (or in some versions, eleven) swans?

Cross over with The Chain (above)?

More general thoughts: I was a little nervous to request this because my introduction to the ballet was a beautifully illustrated book I had from childhood (the 1962 Splendour Book of Ballet) and I have since seen it performed, but only once. So I'm fascinated but not particularly knowledgeable. If you're basing your story off any specific version I'd be very grateful and interested to read pointers in the author's notes!

Healer and Seer Series - Victoria Hanley

Torina, Dahmis, Landen

From my sign-up: I briefly adored this book as a young teen, and when I happened to re-read it this year I was flooded with feelings for this dramatic noble trio and their adventures and their identity porn. I love that despite Landen turning himself into a proper romantic bandit, what he really gets excited about is getting to help Dahmis with his project of peace and good governance. I love that Torina emerges from her cosseted upbringing and then cruel betrayal with self-possession as her most prominent trait. I love Dahmis as the noble king pretty much played straight, but not isolated - I love that he is emphatically surrounded by friends and people who believe in what he's doing.

The OT3 is so close to canon. Please, make it so. Or if you can't make it work, please try to leave the possibility open. Resolved pining would be so great, including porn (with feelings!) Or canon divergence that allows for a different version of identity porn. Or post-canon fic as Landen and Torina both grapple with their new-old roles and try to do right by Bellandra and Dahmis considers other issues of ruling.

Maybe Torina's teenage education was slanted more towards future ruling, and she exchanged letters with Dahmis - who does not later recognise Vineda as his young royal correspondent? Maybe, after Vesputo puts a price on her head, Torina successfully challenges him without Landen's involvement - and reclaims the throne of Archeld without yet knowing Landen's fate? Maybe Dahmis takes Landen with him on a visit to the mysterious seer, and witnesses their first reunion?

More prompts:

Dahmis breaks or circumvents his vow to the other kings not to warn Torina; Landen has to rescue both of them.

Landen and Torina join forces to court Dahmis together.

The Sword comes into play earlier somehow, or you involve other magic!

Landen assassinates Vesputo, much earlier in events; Dahmis has lovelorn angst over passing judgment on him, until Torina appears to vindicate Landen.

I'm usually neutral on baby plots, but in this case, something incredibly tropy about Torina carrying either Landen's or Dahmis' child and both of them doting on her would be welcome.

Established relationship; any two of them in bed together with the third absent but the present two talking about their fantasies for the third.

More towards worldbuilding: what are the correct uses of the Sword? How was it meant to be used? How will Landen grapple with that now?

What exactly has been happening in Bellandra all this time? How do they go about rebuilding it? Fantasy bureaucracy and economics welcomed (although I'd prefer not to go all the way into deconstruction of monarchy tropes, peasant revolution now, etc!).

LOYALTY and PINING and ATTEMPTS AT SELF-SACRIFICE and SUBTLE or GRAND GESTURES all would be amazing here.

More general thoughts: I realise I talked about 'the book' in my sign-up when this was actually nominated under the series tag. Sorry. I have read one of the other books but it was so long ago I don't actually remember which one, or anything else about it; please focus on The Seer and the Sword only!

Most of my prompts are plotty, requiring canon divergence - this is not demanded! That's just what I had ideas for. PWP is also OK or something before/during/after the canon that doesn't rule out the OT3 entirely. This entry is also posted at https://morbane.dreamwidth.org/44658.html. There are comments. Please comment either here or there.

Dear DJ

morbane — Thu, 04 Apr 2019 06:12:44 GMT

This is my letter for the Jukebox fanworks exchange. Thanks for reading!

General likes
I love competence, loyalty, and trust. I like uplifting and hopeful messages, and protagonists who champion them. I also like genuinely terrible characters and tragic arcs, and villains with strong motivations and critiques of the protagonists' goals. Characters are welcome in any shade of grey. I like seeing characters screw up and then learn (or not) from their mistakes. I like reading about characters doing constructive tasks together, for example to relax or to solve problems. I love original characters, outsider character perspectives, and worldbuilding. I love magical realism, dramatic weather, trains, telepathy, and dragons. I like getting a strong sense of time or place. For porn, I love xeno, voyeurism, dubcon, noncon, telepathy, praise kink, and awkward-but-not-emotionally-disastrous sex; intense oh-god-I-can't-believe-it's-so-good sex; gentle and loving sex. I love emotional intimacy whether or not it comes with physical intimacy. I love mentors and protegé(e) relationships, and relationships between characters who are juggling multiple identities. I love seeing the relationship between two characters at one point in time, and then seeing it again when the relationship is very different. I'm just as interested in break-ups as get-togethers. I like Big Damn Hero moments, and also days in the life, or stories about people who are just trying to make it by in a weird world. I love it when authors and artists incorporate something about which they have enthusiasm or specialized knowledge, however mundane or obscure that thing is.

You're welcome to write in past or present tense, and in first, second, or third person. Epistolary and found-media formats are welcome.

Art likes
I really love highly stylised designs in art - geometric patterns, decorative patterns, fancy borders and framings. I like skylines and a sense of distance. I love being able to get a sense of weather from a scene. I love costume details, or character studies done through faces or poses. I like seeing characters in doorways or on stairways. I especially like like jewel tones and earth tones, and muted colours alongside greys. Though neons and rainbows can also be fun! I love art in the style of stained glass, or Art Deco. Playing cards can be fun. Mocked-up documents (handwritten letters, personnel files with pictures) can be fun. Please ignore these notes if they don't give you helpful ideas - as I'm not a visual artist, I have no idea what I'd find helpful as prompts.

Prompts by medium
Fanfic	Fanart
All Moments Leading to This - Lucid 3 (Song)	All Moments Leading to This - Lucid 3 (Song)
Brother - Kodaline (Song)	Falcon in the Dive (The Scarlet Pimpernel) - Wildhorn/Knighton (Song)
The Chain - Fleetwood Mac (Song)	Spectrum - Florence + the Machine (Song)
Falcon in the Dive (The Scarlet Pimpernel) - Wildhorn/Knighton (Song)
Gold Dust Woman - Fleetwood Mac (Song)	Podfic
My Trigger - Miike Snow (Music Video)	All Moments Leading to This - Lucid 3 (Song)
Serenade - Steve Miller Band (Song)
Sons & Daughters - The Decemberists (Song)
Spectrum - Florence + the Machine (Song)

All Moments Leading to This - Lucid 3 (Song)

YouTube
Lyrics
Fanart, Fanfic, Podfic

From sign-up:

All moments leading to this
We take the salt from the water's edge and blow it into the wind
All in awe of the season's swing
Pushing out the winter verging into spring

I love the sense of hope and purpose in this song, the sense of outwardly ordinary but inwardly significant change, the sense that decisions have come to fruition. I am also enthralled by the way that the narrator is enthralled by the sky and seasons - it gives me the sense of steadiness and calm that comes from thinking about the order and beauty in something so much larger than one's own decisions and problems.

I love that whatever the narrator is doing, they are doing it with their friends.

Fanart
Any interpretation of the lyrics and tone is welcome! If you want prompts, though, what I specifically imagined when I prompted it is something that conveys the relationship between the narrator & friends and their landscape/journey. A road leading away from a city at sunset. A group of silhouetted figures looking up at the stars. A group or a person on a beach, bending down to touch the waves as they come in. That's the kind of thing I imagined, but seriously, having a piece of extra media to think of when I listen to this song would make me really happy, so do NOT feel bound by those themes specifically.

Fanfic
Write me a story of a warrior (or other person who serves others in some way) who must swear an oath; tell me about someone going back to their home town after college; make this as fantastical or as prosaic if you like. I'll love anything you write if you gesture to the kind of tone I hear in this song, of purpose and awe and community and quiet, shared strength.

Podfic
My fanfic ideas apply here too; as an optional suggestion, it might be nice to incorporate ocean or wind noise.

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Brother - Kodaline (Song)

YouTube
Lyrics
Fanfic

From sign-up:

If I was dying on my knees
You would be the one to rescue me

I adore the trope of two people whose lives have diverged but who both have a rock-solid certainty that the other person will be there for them in need. So please, give me all of that.

Fanfic
What are they doing now? When did they start to part ways? Is the narrator right to believe that one or the other of them is (or will soon be) in trouble? If one of them does end up rescuing the other, what form does that rescue take? And if there is no need for a dramatic (or subtle) rescue, how do they come back 'together' when they're old?

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The Chain - Fleetwood Mac (Song)

YouTube
Lyrics
Fanfic

From sign-up:

And if you don't love me now
You will never love me again
I can still hear you say you will never break the chain

I love the slow gather and build of this song, the references to the light and weather that make everything seem bigger than the narrator, and of course the stakes and drama.

Fanfic
Why the ultimatum? Why this last chance? I want an answer to the questions this song raises. Some that occur to me: a fairy-tale like task whereby one lover must recognise or claim the other at a certain moment, or forever forfeit them; or, two people are forced to keep up the outward appearances of a relationship (and are thus 'chained' together) while their private feelings are a lot more complicated.

When I first heard this song, I thought that the addressee had to *break* the chain (some other loyalty or compulsion affected them) in order to love the narrator. (For example, someone pleading with their lover to break up with the lover's current partner and be with them instead.) But the lyrics 'chain, keep us together' suggests otherwise, and that 'I can still hear you saying you would never break the chain' is an accusation from the narrator that the addressee has broken their promise. Is it either of those, or something stranger, or simpler?

Something fantastical would be hugely welcome, or a study of these characters that makes them both sympathetic and flawed. I've seen other takes on this song, but I would love even more.

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Falcon in the Dive (The Scarlet Pimpernel) - Wildhorn/Knighton (Song)

YouTube
Lyrics
Fanart, Fanfic

From sign-up:

I wasn't born to sack and slaughter
But on my soul, I wasn't born
To stoop, to scorn, and knuckle under

There is amazing imagery in this song! I'm not looking for Scarlet Pimpernel fic, but I am looking for a sense of timeless antagonists, high emotion and stakes, and the wider context of order and ordinary lives that is almost within the narrator's grasp at times.

Fanart
There's so much to work with here, so seize upon what you enjoy, but my imagination is particularly caught by the idea of bird's-eye views of a town or streets; a crowd fleeing; stars glittering coldly above houses and halls; some juxtaposition of streaming rivers and distant green hills with the harsh city; barred gates; and of course the combination of falcon and man: perhaps a person in silhouette with a larger falcon image behind them? Something that involves the spear, or them rising, or, of course, them diving?

Fanfic
On a prosaic level, there's so much emotion here - the narrator frames his quest as one he must either succeed in or perish; either his prey falls or he will. Tell me about what brought things to such a pass - and about the narrator's distant dream! On a fantastical level, there's a suggestion that the man being hunted is superhuman - perhaps not a man at all - and you can also turn the falcon metaphor into magic and involve actual transformation. I'm particularly intrigued by the narrator's determination not to 'knuckle under' - is the man he pursues a former oppressor?

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Gold Dust Woman - Fleetwood Mac (Song)

YouTube
Lyrics
Fanfic

From sign-up:

Rock on, ancient queen
Follow those who pale in your shadow

You almost have to work harder to make this song follow a mundane story than a fantastical one - and I am here for either choice, or something ambiguous! Just please lean into the emotions.

Fanfic
I'd be down for something mundane and bitter and jealous and passionate - I can't tell if "did she make you cry" is sympathetic or gloating, and maybe it's both. The song could be full of terrible people, or at least include a person who projects their own issues onto others. (Though, no focus on drugs please.)

And I'd also love a fantasy epic that foregrounds a clash between a reign and a romance. One thing this makes me imagine is a deposed queen who has survived and is on a quest to regain her throne, and has fallen in with some traders-cum-bandits, preferably led by a woman. After initial loathing, each gains the grudging respect of the other! Sparks fly!

Can the pale, lethal dragon-woman love someone and hold onto her power?

Ancient queen makes me imagine a reincarnation subplot... or perhaps the gold dust woman is indeed inhuman. I mean, she could be a shapeshifting dragon. The option's there.

Please don't feel bound by these very specific prompts. The only things I really, really want are a sense of strong emotion and high stakes.

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My Trigger - Miike Snow (Music Video)

YouTube
Lyrics
Fanfic

From sign-up:

I'm in the graveyard if looks could kill
But murder ain't your thing, you just shoot to thrill
But if you did, put you in my will, will

Although the music video is amazing and ripe for exploration, you're welcome to write me something about the song on its own - the above lyrics, for example, read as kinky and intense to me.

Fanfic
I admit I know very little about Kennedy, Khrushchev, or the Cuban Missile Crisis, but please go wild in either expanding the alternate all-dancing all-dove-ing world of the video, or working in actual historical references. Is this a soulbond? Or do all world leaders have the potential for a kind of resonant telepathy? What other conflicts get solved with dancing?

Off-the-cuff lyrics-based idea - the combination of death & sex, and the line 'take a spin', makes me imagine that the narrator has hooked up with an android who was designed both for extreme combat and sexual gratification. I'd like this to end happily for the android at the very least. That's just one idea, though! And the 'portal where peace begins' invites something trippy and spiritual.

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Serenade - Steve Miller Band (Song)

YouTube
Lyrics
Fanfic

From sign-up:

Wake up and look around you
We're lost in space and the time is our own

Lost in space is a time-honoured trope, but I'm especially interested in the interwoven references to time and music and non-space environments with wind, the Earth, etc. I get the sense there's something more going on here, and I'd like to know what it is.

Fanfic
This lends itself to a story in which a space crew wake up after a strange experience and find themselves somewhere/somewhen else. What happened, how do they get back, DO they get back? Or lean into the references to music and love in the air - maybe, whether this is actually in space or not, the characters are experiencing anything from hallucinations to some kind of spiritual revelation. Please don't let these prompts box you in, though - I'd love something that draws on the atmosphere of the song, however it strikes you, whether or not you interpret the lyrics closely.

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Sons & Daughters - The Decemberists (Song)

YouTube
Lyrics
Fanfic

From sign-up:

We'll make our homes on the water
We'll build our walls aluminum
We'll fill our mouths with cinnamon now

I'm fascinated by the hopeful, warm tone of the song - borne out by the sense of a family together, and the traditions evoked by 'cinnamon'; contrasted strongly by bunkers, bombs, dirigibles. I have all the obvious questions about what's going on here, and what history and the future is to these characters.

Fanfic
Are these people fleeing war - or waging it? Is this a religious group fleeing persecution, or civilians caught in crossfire, or people with some kind of supernatural connection to the water? Again, I love how evocative 'cinnamon' is - it paints a picture for me of people with a strong sense of tradition, and connection to each other, seeking somewhere where they can transplant and nourish their traditions. I don't have any particularly inventive prompts here - I'd just like to see this world expanded (though you're still welcome to leave parts ambiguous).

Back to top

Spectrum - Florence + the Machine (Song)

YouTube
Lyrics
Fanart, Fanfic

From sign-up:

And when we come for you
We'll be dressed up all in blue
With the ocean in our arms
Kiss your eyes and kiss your palms

I love the combination here of intense emotion - we will never be afraid again - and what seems like pure, mystical nonsense. Something fantastical, including horror, would be welcome, though I would also be fascinated to see a take that made simple mundane sense of these lyrics. Or of course anything in between!

Fanart
Each individual verse feels like a good starting point to me (of course, I'm not an artist), especially with their strong colour themes. I'm particularly intrigued by the idea of arriving spirits (?) who are paper thin and clear and somehow cold. This also seems like a good opportunity for my general art like of stained-glass-style images. And for the importance of 'say my name' - maybe stylised script incorporated into an image somehow? People made of words?

Fanfic
Why will they never be afraid again? And is this a good thing? The 'we' in the song seem potentially benevolent, but also potentially terrifying. I get the sense of spirits begging to be set free - or maybe demons. I'm also curious about the relationship between the single entity whose name is to be spoken, and the 'we' that she/he/? is part of. But it's also totally fine if your take expands on some of the lyrics and ignores others - go with what catches your imagination most.

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Dear Once Upon a Fic Writer

morbane — Sun, 17 Feb 2019 09:02:59 GMT

This is my letter for the Once Upon Fic exchange! (once_upon_fic).

Dear writer, as ever, I am very excited for this exchange! Thank you for considering my prompts.

General fairy tale ideas
For stories written for fairy tales, I welcome:
-A sense of awe or the numinous, or uncanny things. I love seeing characters take in the sheer consciousness-expanding weirdness of magic. I love it when the presence of magic adds to the sense of atmosphere.
-(in contrast, I also welcome) Characters whose familiarity with magic affects their perspective on the world. It's fun to explore characters who take prosaically for granted things that would amaze us.
-Stories that play around with characters' genders or sexualities. Trans, ace, nonbinary, etc, characters all welcome. (Please also see DNWs.)
-A romantic story reinterpreted as non-romantic - or a non-romantic story reinterpreted as romantic.
-Stories that loosely blend elements of more than one fairy tale to create a new story. As long as at least one story I've requested plays a prominent part, you're welcome to draw ideas from stories I didn't request this year. (Please also see DNWs.)
-Stories that focus on or give backstories to magical artefacts and architecture and landscapes. I love glass mountains and golden bridles and enchanted knives.
-Setting AUs! Mundane, in space, in a particular country or time, centred on a particular industry or career - go wild! I really enjoy seeing how the shape of a fairy tale comes through in a very different context. Exception: please no mundane AUs for Heer Halewijn.
-Canon divergence AUs.

General likes
I love competence, loyalty, and trust. I like uplifting and hopeful messages, and protagonists who champion them. I also like genuinely terrible characters and tragic arcs, and villains with strong motivations and critiques of the protagonists' goals. Characters are welcome in any shade of grey. I like seeing characters screw up and then learn (or not) from their mistakes. I love original characters, outsider character perspectives, and worldbuilding. I love magical realism, dramatic weather, trains, telepathy, and dragons. I like getting a strong sense of time or place. For porn, I love xeno, voyeurism, dubcon, noncon, telepathy, praise kink, and awkward-but-not-emotionally-disastrous sex; intense oh-god-I-can't-believe-it's-so-good sex; gentle and loving sex. I love emotional intimacy whether or not it comes with physical intimacy. I love mentors and protegé(e) relationships, and relationships between characters who are juggling multiple identities. I love seeing the relationship between two characters at one point in time, and then seeing it again when the relationship is very different. I'm just as interested in break-ups as get-togethers. I like Big Damn Hero moments, and also days in the life, or stories about people who are just trying to make it by in a weird world. I love it when authors and artists incorporate something about which they have enthusiasm or specialized knowledge, however mundane or obscure that thing is. You're welcome to write in past or present tense, and in first, second, or third person. Epistolary and found-media formats are welcome.

Do-Not-Wants:
Harm to hands, amnesia, substance abuse; crack; narrators breaking the fourth wall; issuefic where the story and characters are the vehicle for a modern social issue that does not come up in canon.

To be clearer (hopefully!) about crack & narrators breaking the fourth wall: although I've seen this done well, I'm really picky about the execution, so please avoid stories in which the narrator knows all fairy tales and is commenting on them from a point of elevated knowledge. I'm fine with a narrator - especially an unreliable narrator! - who is also a character, and who has a specific, personal reason for telling a story. Crack taken seriously is welcome, but instead of pure crack, I'd prefer humour that is grounded in the events of stories and the characters' natural reactions to those events, or humour that preserves a sense of depth, wonder, and strangeness.

To be clearer (hopefully!) about issuefic: I'm happy to get conflict and resolution around issues like gender equality, or the horror of war, or capitalism, or religious tolerance, where it suits the characters or fairy tale. However, please also give the characters goals and struggles that relate to other things. If you're writing a story about a social issue like these, I'd prefer the protagonists have flaws, and the opportunity to grow and change, rather than being perfect mouthpieces for morality (or being lectured by other perfect mouthpieces for morality).

If my DNWs are unclear, sorry, and please feel free to ask for clarification through my co-mod, Rosencrantz.

The Bear

I love the good cheer of this story and the princess's relatable desire to get out and see the world. I love her actually-a-witch ally, I love the picturesque details of the wheelbarrow and bearskin, I love that she and the prince are (kinda) friends before they're romantic interests, and I love that she giggles at the prince during the identity shenanigans. More shenanigans welcome (more mischief with the wheelbarrow?), or just an exploration of the story. I'd particularly like a story that keeps a cheerful or at least hopeful tone.

-Is there a funny story behind why the witch chose the bearskin and the wheelbarrow? Why those items?
-Does the princess also have some kind of weather sense or weather magic, or just really good timing?
-If you could soften or retcon the kicking, that'd be great. Not so keen on casual violence. Though possibly the identity shenanigans are the princess's revenge for his thoughtlessness there?
-Does anyone think it's weird that the prince's servant is a bear? Maybe the queen and prince don't get visitors very often? My theory is that the prince is a very *minor* noble, and does not possess much land at all, really.
-Is there ever a reconciliation between the princess and her father? OK if not, but could be interesting to see. Does the witch ever come back into the princess's life?
-Later on, the bearskin comes in handy for some sort of intrigue!
-The prince and princess's children get up to mischief with the wheelbarrow.
-I just really want more of these characters. They charm me so much.
-I especially love the identity porn so please keep some of that if reimagining this in an AU!
-What if the prince had let the bear come with him to the ball?

The Colony of Cats

This story is both charming and disturbing - you have the goodnatured maiden keeping house for a bevy of highly intelligent cats, and then you have nonconsensual body modification (even to the good sister) and its after-effects. A cute story about being the cat's maid would be great; so would a more serious look at Lizina's life after. And I'm fascinated by the coachman - how did he come to learn the language of the cats? What use does he make of it after?

-This was a beloved fairy tale for me as a kid because I loved the idea of keeping house for sentient cats. I'd love more fantastical domesticity.
-No one knows where they got the money to pay for everything, nor who paid it, for all this happened so very long ago - I'm curious!
-Crossover with The Girl Who Became a Boy, and specifically, the church full of snakes?
-The two jars and their effects are so incredibly specific, and even as a kid, I thought 'but what if Lizina didn't want either of them?' Feel free to explore them further! Maybe the cats are so rich because they somehow have just one piece of magic and they always arrange to use it instead of actually paying their debts... Maybe not.
-A sci-fi retelling might make better use of the donkey's tail and golden star. Hi-tech body mods? Gene splicing?
-What happened to the second sister?

East of the Sun and West of the Moon

I love this fairy tale's vast open landscape, the imaginative promise of the title, and the way that the heroine (who knows her own mind, and says 'no' firmly but also isn't afraid) makes a mistake but fights to redeem it. I'd love to know more about the girl's journeys - carried away by the bear, and seeking him - and about the bear's backstory. Who is he and how did he come to be engaged to the troll princess? A story just about the North Wind, or just about the troll princess, would also be welcome.

-How did the bear come to choose his wife?
-More fantastical domesticity in the early days of the girl and the bear's marriage! What was it like to keep house for a bear?
-Especially in a modern context, "Don't talk alone with your mother," a red flag, even if it passes in a fairy tale. Examine this?
-Does the bear have some gift of foreknowledge? Did someone else give him cryptic warnings about what he must do to escape the trolls?
-How was the bargain struck, that the bear must live a year with his new wife if he wished to be free of the trolls?
-I adore the idea of the location east of the sun, west of the moon. Anything that plays with or rationalizes this would be beloved.
-How do all these old magical women know that the girl "was the one who should have had him"? Is there a reason this couple is the hot gossip topic among sages?
-Do the three golden items have any particular powers or histories, besides being unusual?
-What's it like to ride on the back of the wind?
-Was there some trick to the washing of the shirt?

The Groac'h of the Isle of Lok

I'm fascinated by the magical artefacts and transformations in this story - it all feels part of a much bigger story. Why does the Groac'h collect her suitors? (Did Houarn really nearly eat his fellows?!) Is the Groac'h one of many powerful underwater denizens? How did Bellah come to possess her magical artefacts? What did the horse think? What are the other suitors' stories?

-I would love any magical worldbuilding about rules about what can be transformed into what.
-How did Korandon come to marry the Groac'h - was there ever love between them?
-Canon-divergence: either Houarn or Bellah stays longer in the Groac'h palace before being transformed or defeated, and the mind games stretch out for longer. UST welcome - after all, the Groac'h declares herself in love with Bellah, and at that point, Bellah has not asked her for anything.
-Backstory for any of the other suitors!
-The Groac'h declares to Houarn that her husband is dead: as a somewhat off-the-wall idea, what if she's telling the truth as she knows it, but is living non-linear time in which she has already experienced (possibly caused) Korandon's death?
-Tell me more about the lives of Bellah and Houarn and the suitors after breaking the enchantment.
-Tell me more about Bellah and Houarn's original childhood dreams.

Heer Halewijn | alternate source

This ballad is new to me and I'm fascinated by the adventure between the deeply evil, seductive Halewijn and the brave princess, who seems to succeed by wits and by leveraging her beauty rather than by any superhuman power of her own. Give me more details of the princess's preparations, or give me backstory for Halewijn, or tell me the story of a maiden who came before our heroine, and who tried to defeat him and failed.

-Halewijn backstory? I'm fascinated by the idea that he got his powers through a deal with the devil - or a failed deal with the devil. What was he trying for, and (how) was it corrupted?
-Tell me about the protagonist's relationship with her sister and her brother? Is she younger or older than them?
-While you're welcome to focus on the princess's heroic quest, or other gen, I'm also really up for something dark and/or kinky! A previous maiden's seduction and murder? Or explore the period when the princess was under Halewijn's control - I like imagining her request about the shirt either as cunning rebellion, OR as a sincere sentiment. Characters who are being mind-whammied to believe they want things other than what they want make for really interesting horror for me. I'm also fascinated by the idea that Halewijn's influence fundamentally changed the princess, rather than going away when he died.
-That said, a healthy past or future relationship for the princess is also welcome!
-Halewijn: vampire?
-I'm curious about when he tries to compel the princess to call his friends for aid. What friends would these be?
-DNW specifically for this canon: no entirely mundane AUs, please. While the parallels to an 'ordinary' rapist or serial killer are there, I'd prefer they stay parallels only - please keep a supernatural element. Thanks!

Kemp Owyne

As I am fond of stories about princesses and dragons, I'm especially interested in this character who is both! Tell me more about why Isobel's stepmother cursed her, and why she chose the condition she did for breaking the curse. Tell me how Isobel felt about Kemp Owyne and about relying on him to break the curse. And where did she get the magical artefacts with which she bribes Kemp Owyne in some versions? And how is is that the broken curse rebounds more forcefully on the stepmother - is this just karma, or due to Isobel's own magical abilities?

-I'd love the scene of Kemp Owyne and Isobel's first meeting and conversation.
-Kinky version welcome! Maybe more than a kiss was required.
-What if the stepmother was lying about the means to break the curse?
-In the song, Isobel "goes away" briefly each time Kemp Owyne kisses her. Is there a reason for this? (Just untwisting her hair? The part about being tied to the tree/mountain with her own hair is quite evocative.)
-Either a version where Kemp Owyne and Isobel knew each other before the transformation, or a version in which they didn't, is welcome. For the former, playing up the identity porn aspect would be neat!

The Lute Player

I love this queen's courage and resourcefulness - both at home and abroad. I'd love more of a look into her head during this story - how does she come up with her plan? How does she get on with managing the kingdom? Does she intend for her husband to recognize her at first, or is it an unexpected development when he doesn't recognize her? Why does she not reveal herself to him? And after the big reveal - how did this affect their relationship going forward? What was it like for the king to rule after his long campaign and exile?

-So was the queen always that awesome or was it more a case of discovering what things she'd never known she could do because she had to?
-Did the king know she had a gift for music? One thing I like to imagine is that the queen learned to play musical instruments as part of a thorough courtly education (along with things like embroidery and flower arranging) and never imagined she'd use it in this way, but that's just one theory!
-Any further detail on the setting would be wonderful! History, politics, culture, etc.
-Add magic?
-More about the queen's adventures on the way to get the king?
-I'm baffled by the story detail of it being 3 years before the queen found out what happened to the king. Feel free to either retcon that, or explain it.
-Some character development for the king? I have misgivings about his warmongering and also about his fiscal policies.

The Princess and the Pea

This story raises so many questions. What exactly is a real Princess? From the story, we can infer it's someone of incredibly delicate constitution and refinement... or is maybe not that simple? Why was the princess travelling? Was she also in search of a suitable husband, or was the original object of her quest something else?

-This seems like it would suit a bizarre landscape or dreamscape - is the Prince trying to escape a world of mirrors and simulacra? I mean I guess the tale is talking about proper noble blood, etc, for a real princess, but I am fascinated by the focus on what is real and it could be taken so many ways.
-and everywhere things went wrong - like what?
-Is the princess in the story a con artist? I'm getting that vibe
-Is the pea magical or cursed?
-Is the pea something arranged between the princess and the prince to get around the prince's parents' objections?
-I'm curious about the king going to open the town gate himself in the middle of a storm. Is this a very understaffed castle?
-How did the king and queen's courtship go, that this royal family has such odd ideas about how to discover/prove a real princess?
-A more serious disquisition on authenticity also welcome, in amongst all the whimsy.

Rumpelstiltskin

The biggest question to me is, what did Rumpelstiltskin want the miller's daughter's child for? Maybe he didn't intend any harm to it - or maybe, even if he had nefarious designs, he himself was caught in a trap. Also, how did he know the miller's daughter was in such dire straits? I suspect collusion between the king and Rumpelstiltskin, or that Rumpelstiltskin put the idea in the miller's head. I also feel very sympathetic to the miller's daughter! Promising a child is a terrible thing to do, but she had few options, and perhaps she had some reason to believe she could balance her debt some other way before it came due. What did she learn, settling into her role, between her task and when Rumpelstiltskin came back into her life?

-So how did the miller's daughter get out of turning straw into gold for the rest of her life? The king seemed like the type of person who'd never stop asking for more, but we only see her being forced to perform this task before the wedding.
-Rumpelstiltskin makes a hell of an exit once the queen tells him his name. Why???
-Rumpelstiltskin also made an art of the Overly Informative Villain Monologue before its time. Again, why? Why was he singing his secrets to the world?
-Very dark/dubcon prompt: the demand for a firstborn child is actually the demand that the miller's daughter carry Rumpelstiltskin's child.
-A lighter version in which the king and queen's first child merely serves an apprenticeship, or a period of service, with Rumpelstiltskin, would also be welcome.
-Does the king ever get some kind of comeuppance for having made threats on the miller's daughter's life?
-Please note I have never seen Disney's Once Upon a Time - please no canon from that.
This entry is also posted at https://morbane.dreamwidth.org/42018.html. There are comments. Please comment either here or there.

AO3 collections moderation queue "bug"

morbane — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 02:24:28 GMT

This is a conversation I'm having with AO3's AD&T, through Support; I'm posting it here because the outcome may be of interest to other AO3 gift exchange moderators. tl;dr: there is a thing, relatively minor, that I don't want AO3 to do, and I am attempting to further argue the case.

Obviously, this post has an agenda. I am hoping other moderators will also say, to AO3, please don't do the thing. There is a difference between "Morbane gets a bugbear; these are the wishes of one user" and "Multiple users have demonstrated the utility of a function in several different use cases" - not that I expect AO3 to ignore the wishes of one user, but I expect them to prioritise the latter more. But, if other moderators mind less, that is also useful to know.

The global settings and moderation queue of an AO3 collection: how they work
An AO3 collection can be set to "revealed" or "unrevealed" (works are available for reading, or not), and, independently, "not anonymous" and "anonymous" (works do, or don't, display their creator's names). A collection can also be set to moderated or unmoderated.

When a collection is unmoderated, any work submitted to that collection appears in a list of Approved Items. Any change made to the settings of the collection affects the Approved Items. If a work is submitted when the collection is unrevealed, and the collection is then set to revealed, the work will become available to read.

When a collection is moderated, any* work submitted to that collection appears in a moderation queue of items "Awaiting Approval", which the moderator can review before adding works to the Approved list as they choose. (There's also a Rejected list.)

Whether a collection is moderated or unmoderated, a moderator can select any Approved or Rejected item and give them an unapproved setting so that they go to the Awaiting Approval list.

Specifically...
For several years - I forget when I first used this function - the Awaiting Approval moderation queue has seemed particularly useful, because an item left in this queue does not reveal or have its creator name appear when those settings are changed in the rest of the collection.

However, when we asked AD&T AO3 staff to support the Yuletide mods and watch the collection back-end at the moment of revealing Yuletide stories - which they did, for which we thank them - we discovered that the moderation queue isn't supposed to work this way. Any item submitted (or, presumably, invited) to a collection, whether awaiting approval, rejected, or approved, should apparently obey every setting change made to the collection. When the works are revealed, that should apparently include the rejected and un-approved works. When the creator's names are revealed, that should again apparently include the rejected and un-approved works. The only difference is that the rejected and un-approved works will not appear in the collection itself or display the collection link anywhere.

I am, however, frustrated that AO3 wants to fix this behaviour - and indicated that this was a matter of some urgency to them - because the ability to corral off certain selected works and keep them from going 'live' is a really useful tool for quarantining spitefic, picklefic, unfinished works, duplicated works, and in some past cases, especially egregious Do-Not-Want fills. There are works that moderators do not want to reveal.

*except for works submitted by members of collections, which sail right past the moderation queue

Correspondence with Support to date
I wrote in a few days after Yuletide reveals when this mismatch of expectations came to light.

December 28, 2018

Dear Support and AD&T,

Yesterday the Yuletide moderating team brought to your attention a way in which the collections moderation queue works. AO3 staff apparently categorize this as a bug; I categorize it as a desired behaviour that is both reliable and relied on. I am writing to ask you to please not change this behaviour.

Heretofore, when:
-a collection is set to unrevealed and anonymous,
-and some works are approved and some are in the moderation queue,
-and the moderator then changes the collection settings to revealed or revealed and non-anonymous,
-the result has been that the works in the moderation queue do not pick up the new settings, but stay unrevealed.

I believe that this behaviour has been around long before the "reveals bug" in which works may fail to obey, or pick up, a collection's settings for other reasons.

It is a useful tool for moderators and one I have relied on in the past. Removing this functionality would cause me, and I believe other users, a range of negative outcomes including frustration and embarrassment.

For example: this year, a user submitted two versions of the same work, near-identical, to the collection. This was clearly a mistake, but they did not respond to emails suggesting they delete one of the works. Putting one of the two works in the moderation queue before reveals, in order to keep it from revealing, seemed like the most appropriate way to handle this. Our other options were to reveal it with the rest (which the coders supervising the Yuletide reveals inadvertently did), meaning kudos & comments split between the two works, and a disappointed recipient), or to reject** it, which would have given away the authorship of the work still in the collection, and kudos & comments split again. In any case, the recipient would have been confused, but if the work had stayed unrevealed, they would not have got doubled-up notifications and could have easily clarified with us why they had a Mystery Gift still.

In other cases, we have aimed to keep hidden
-works that are not real works, for example find-and-replace fics or plagiarized text from the internet, where we have told the authors that we will happily reveal the works if they update them with fic
-fic that contained heavy use of DNWs stated by the recip to be triggering (a fic featuring drug overdose and suicide where the recipient had clearly asked for NOT THAT).
-theoretically, spitefic***.

When we discussed this with you yesterday, you offered a workaround for our collection this year of setting it back to unrevealed and moderated, and putting the sensitive works back in the moderation queue where they would pick up the collection's new settings.

If this is going to be your suggestion going forward, then, please don't fix the "bug" - it's hard to see the point of allowing moderators the same effect but only if they achieve it in a more roundabout way. In order to get the effect we want to when revealing Yuletide next year, I imagine we will leave the collection on unrevealed and anonymous, and update the settings on every approved work, one by one, through over 100 pages of 20 works each. That seems punitive.

If you aim by fixing the bug to remove any ability by moderators to change a work's settings back to unrevealed or anonymous in any situation, once it has already revealed, please reconsider and seek further feedback. I am aware that there is some tension between the control an author should have over their work and the control a collection moderator should have in this situation, but an author can remove a work from a collection at any time.

Please clarify what functionality we are supposed to have. If I've been abusing my power I'd certainly like to know!

Please don't fix this bug.

Kind regards, Morbane

**I should have said 'remove' rather than 'reject' here.
***As it so happens we have not used this feature to keep any spitefic hidden - spitefic is generally discovered after a collection opens. If we happened to discover it early, we'd definitely want to hold it back, though.

December 30, 2018

Hi, Morbane:

Thanks for asking about this bug. I checked with the Coders on this. The bug is unintentional behavior by the Archive code that can trap works in an unrevealed state, leaving them unfindable, and thus needs to be fixed. While you're not doing so, this can be used in an abusive manner, and thus needs to be fixed. They intend to fix this bug by making it so that unapproved and rejected works become revealed when the collection becomes revealed. They also noted that they are testing a fix for works getting stuck in reveal, and plan to deploy it as soon as possible.

There is no plan to remove the ability for a collection moderator to put a collection or work back in an unrevealed status. We appreciate your feedback. If you have other thoughts, let us know.

Best,
CJ
AO3 Support co-chair

January 3, 2019

Dear CJ and team,

I appreciate the speed of this response and that you're very clear about coders' position here. Thank you.

It's also very exciting to have a formal confirmation that a fix for works being stuck at various settings is in the works. Thanks for telling me. I hope testing goes smoothly!

I'm still a little puzzled by this response - especially the position that the moderation queue behaviour before fixing is open to abuse, and yet, it is OK for the same effect to be achieved with more effort. That seems just as open to abuse as doing it simply. I am travelling at the moment and will comment further in a few days. Thank you for considering my feedback.

In the meantime, I have another question about the desired behaviour of the moderation functions for challenges, please. I'm wondering about the rejected from collection list. If a moderator has chosen to reject a work before changing a collection setting, is it your intention that the work picks up the new collection setting or not?

As far as I can tell, an author also gets no notification when a work has been rejected. The banner displayed on the work on the user's side only indicates that it is part of a collection and will be revealed soon. Is this intentional?

Thank you, Morbane

As I did not indicate any urgency to those follow-up questions, I have not yet heard back.

My chief issue is: this is a useful, reliable thing that works to help moderators do a thing they want to do. I'm sure it's possible to abuse it, but given it's worked this way for years and coders did not know that, I feel that reports of its abuse must have been rare to nonexistent.

And their fix does not make it impossible for me, or another moderator, to abuse it - it merely makes it hard, at the same time as making other things hard. If it's a power that can be abused and they want to do something about it, why leave me with that power? After their fix, I could still go mad with power and go back and hide a single work in each of Yuletide 2010, 2011, 2012, etc, etc. The poor author and recipient might not notice for months or years, and then be very dismayed when they did. If that's the kind of abuse they mean (and abuse it would surely be!), then the fix would in no way remove my ability to do it.

Thoughts and suggestions very welcome - including if you disagree with me! And if you're a moderator who also would like AO3 not to "fix" this "bug", please tell them so.

I received a further reply:
January 13, 2019

Hi,

Thank you for these concerns regarding this bug in the Collection feature. Because a number of users have submitted similar tickets, we are collating the information and sending the same response to all users.

While we are open to suggestions for better exchange moderation tools, we view the ability to leave unrevealed works in an otherwise revealed collection as a bug that has to be fixed, not a feature, because it can trap works in an unrevealed state when the work is unapproved. We note that this can be done accidentally, if the work's creator does not regularly check their works. We also note that this can be done maliciously, in the case of a moderator judging a participant's work as "not good enough". We have known about the bug for years, but they weren't aware it was being intentionally exploited. We're somewhat relieved to hear it's being used with good intentions but we can't count on it remaining that way as knowledge of the bug is spread. As well, tags used on these "hidden" works populate the wrangling queue, impeding Tag Wranglers' workflow. We want to note that, in the case of keeping the work in the moderation queue to prevent the recipient from getting a mismatched work, a malicious creator can still remove the work from the collection and directly gift it.

We suggest that if moderators retain the need to keep some works unrevealed, they should leave the Collection itself unrevealed and reveal individual works instead.

We want to note that the fix to this bug will likely be deployed in the vicinity of a number of other Collection and Challenge bug fixes, including fixing the issue where some works stay unrevealed when a Collection is revealed, and fixing an issue where the email notification for a rejected (and revealed) work would have the name of the collection it was rejected from. Most of these fixes have been in process for a while, but the Coders have had a backlog of more critical projects.

For your new question, once a work is rejected, it should be completely disconnected from the collection, and thus not pick up status changes. Do you have a link to a work that's misfiring?

Best,
CJ
AO3 Support co-chair

I'm pondering a reply; they do seem pretty set on this choice. I respectfully disagree that this is something unknown that will be more open to abuse as knowledge "spreads". I feel like a lot of moderators have known about it for a while and because we thought it was designed behaviour, we treated it responsibly. Of course, I don't know all cases. I do know of one exchange that stayed unrevealed for years because the mod essentially flaked. That seems unfortunate - but not a disaster - to me.

NOTE: In replies others have received, CJ suggests grouping multiple comments to this issue in single documents/emails to aid Support in processing comments on this issue. The original support ticket I was assigned is ## 206703 ##. If you send a new comment to AO3 about this, I suggest quoting that ticket in your subject line.

Reply, post-pondering
January 14, 2019

Dear CJ and team,

Thank you for your reply.

It's reassuring and helpful to hear that if/when this bug is fixed, it will be fixed as part of a suite of fixes including the reveals bug that struck at random to prevent works picking up intended collection settings. Since that's been a high-profile bug, this alleviates a concern I had that moderators who use the moderation queue "bug" would not know that it had been fixed and would be further inconvenienced by its fixing. Excellent. I wish coders and testers all luck with the reveals bug fix, and again, I'm grateful to receive an update on it.

It's also disquieting to hear that this will be part of a suite of unspecified fixes, because I already know that this suite includes a fix that, for me, is an act of breaking. I wonder what impact other fixes will have on me. I look forward to more information in due time.

To return to your last question,

For your new question, once a work is rejected, it should be completely disconnected from the collection, and thus not pick up status changes. Do you have a link to a work that's misfiring?

I think you mean removed, not rejected? I may have muddled this issue by using the wrong term at a point in my original submission - "to reject it, which would have given away the authorship of the work still in the collection". I meant removed there. Sorry. So that we're 100% on the same page:

-To remove a work from the collection is to immediately eject it; it will act as though it was not submitted to the collection but instead published outside it. I haven't tested this but I believe this would send a gift notification email if the collection were originally unrevealed, and the work were a gift. Happily, I do not know of any work that has been removed from a collection and is misfiring by still showing that collection's status changes.

-To reject a work from the collection is to add it to a list like Approved. This list is called Rejected Items. I am not sure what the function of this list is, and that's what I was asking about. Because of other things you have said, I'm wondering if this is meant to be a sort of pre-Remove list, where moderators put things they want to remove, but not yet? For example, maybe someone submits an unfinished work; according to coders, the moderator might then put it in the Reject list, and when revealing the collection, the moderator might go to the Rejected page and Remove all the rejected works, per page, at the same time. I am guessing, here. Is this how it's meant to work? Right now, a work in the Rejected list does not pick up a change made to global collection settings from Unrevealed to Revealed, or Anonymous to Non-Anonymous. I assume that this is another manifestation of the behaviour you consider a bug. Hence my questions:

If a moderator has chosen to reject a work before changing a collection setting, is it your intention that the work picks up the new collection setting or not?

As far as I can tell, an author also gets no notification when a work has been rejected. The banner displayed on the work on the user's side only indicates that it is part of a collection and will be revealed soon. Is this intentional?

You make the point that if this bug is not fixed, there is the potential for works to be trapped. I'd like to go into that a bit further.

Each year since exchange functionality was set up, thousands of works - maybe now tens of thousands - are trapped in an unrevealed state. This is not a flaw: this is on purpose. This is what happens when a user voluntarily submits a work to a prompt claim challenge or a gift exchange challenge. The user either explicitly or implicitly agrees that their work is for challenge or prompt meme purpose, and abides by that challenge's and AO3's terms, and will be sprung from that trap by the moderator when conditions (usually, specifically, a date) are met. The moderator is a fallible human. Works can stay trapped.

In this situation, one user permitting another user to hide their work - with the risks this entails - is already part of AO3's design. It is not abuse; it is a contract of responsibility between participants and mods. Where and when, according to coders (and, I hope, the wider staff community), does this become abuse? I presume it is not abuse when a moderator says "I'm giving everyone a 2-week extension, so works will go live in April rather than March." I presume it is not abuse when the Purim Gifts exchange reveals different sets of works on different days of the festival of Purim, or when other exchanges reveal works one day at a time. I presume it is not abuse (though it is not desirable) when a moderator goes AWOL and works stay unrevealed in a collection for four years... If the issue is the idea that a work might stay indefinitely unrevealed, the "bug" fix does not fix that last example. What is the principle you are trying to code to ensure, here? That when a work is submitted to a collection by a user, this is an act of publishing, and all published works ought eventually see the light of day? That moderators may use their powers to hide works only up to a certain point, but not others? What point?

It sounds as if to coders' thinking, "When exchange challenge moderators change a collection's status to Revealed, they must reveal all works" is a Rule. Is it? Perhaps coders thought they had made it an unspoken rule by intending to code it that way, the same way that Earth has a rule that humans can't breathe water. However, that rule was not coded, and being told that we've been breaking it all this time and therefore can't now be trusted feels immensely unfair. Please let's work with what the code is, and what behaviours that has encoded in us.

You say, "We're somewhat relieved to hear it's being used with good intentions but we can't count on it remaining that way as knowledge of the bug is spread." Although I respect that your goal is to avoid harm to users, I firmly disagree with your conclusions here. If you say you knew about this before my submission, I stand corrected on that point - but so did we. Your userbase treated this as a designed function. And this is good news! Maybe we're better than you think! :) I challenge you to show that, having known about it, moderators have used it to hurt people and this is a widespread, pernicious problem worth a code fix that hurts multiple moderators acting in good faith.

It seems to me that in this discussion there are two kinds of abuse that are worth distinguishing - the kind where people are using a feature in a way it wasn't designed to be used, like Mary Poppins using an umbrella to fly, and the kind where people are taking advantage of a function to hurt others or set them up to be hurt. If you did not intend it to be possible to set a collection to be revealed, while leaving some works unrevealed, then using this function is the flying type of abuse. Agreed. However, so is the thing whereby people nominate "Group: Character/Character" in the Character slot of nominations for a tag set in an exchange. There are many kinds of not-intended-functionality abuse that I assume coders consider acceptable, because they serve a purpose that outweighs than their potential for harm (I imagine "Group: Character/Character" in the tag set character slot occasionally has negative impacts on tag wranglers). I again encourage you to consider that the use of the moderations queue to hold back works and keep them from revealing an example of this type of abuse, unintended but where harm is minor enough that it should not be a priority to fix.

You say, regarding trapping, "We note that this can be done accidentally, if the work's creator does not regularly check their works. We also note that this can be done maliciously, in the case of a moderator judging a participant's work as "not good enough"."

I respectfully submit that "if the work's creator does not regularly check their works" does not apply. Challenges are set up so that a creator can expect their work to reveal at a particular time, or during a particular period, according to other predictable factors. It's not a matter of the creator thinking "Hm, I submitted my work two months ago, should I check if it's revealed yet? Maybe I shouldn't worry now, but in two further months?" It's more a matter of "Wait, I was taking part in Exchange X, and it revealed. Why didn't my recipient get their gift?" At which point, this is a matter for mod-participant communication, or if the mod has in fact acted inappropriately, Abuse. In the circumstances in which mods would like to use the moderation queue to hold back works, I believe an affected creator has more transparency - and more cues to act - than you represent.

I also submit that if a moderator's subjective quality judgment leads to this abuse, the bug fix does not prevent it *except* that the recipient may also be involved because you want to ensure a gift notification goes out.

You say, "We want to note that, in the case of keeping the work in the moderation queue to prevent the recipient from getting a mismatched work, a malicious creator can still remove the work from the collection and directly gift it."

I take your point - this is two sides of the same coin. I'm arguing that the current moderation queue functionality is a powerful tool for moderators because it allows us to prevent works going live, but also it is not too powerful, and its potential abuse can be checked, because creators can work around it. You're arguing that if creators can work around it, it isn't really that powerful a tool. I assure you that it's valuable to me to force creators to take more effort to give something inappropriate to a recipient, giving me time to warn the recipient

I also do not want an inappropriate work to be given to a recipient with my collection's name on it. Perhaps that is mitigated by a bug fix you mention, "fixing an issue where the email notification for a rejected (and revealed) work would have the name of the collection it was rejected from." I still want to put the ball back in the creator's court if they're giving an inappropriate gift. In the case of jerks, again, this gives more time for me to mitigate the harm, and warns them that maybe they have acted inappropriately even if they didn't get my email. In the case of someone who's accidentally posted half their story that cuts off after bad HTML, or someone who posted plagiarism and was admitted to hospital, I believe that they would prefer that than that I reveal their work with the others.

Of course there will be occasions when I or other moderators make bad judgment calls. I don't think you can code for that. I think it's going to be an issue for participants and mods to sort out between themselves when it arises.

Perhaps it is more fruitful to talk about what functionality we would like to have, rather than the precise current means we achieve it. I do not expect any of this to be implemented immediately, but a) you say you're open to discussing further moderation tools and b) there is clearly a difference between what moderators think they should be able to do and what coders think they should be able to do. Let's fix that.

As far as I know, from the discussion on my Dreamwidth post (https://morbane.dreamwidth.org/41615.html), here are the things we'd like to be able to do, both as covered by the moderation queue bug, and highlighted by it.

-We do not necessarily want a means to "trap" works indefinitely. We just want a head start, or to operate on a schedule.

-When we want to hold works back from revealing for sensitive reasons, we want to protect the author (a second chance to update the work; avoiding embarrassment because the author did not finish a work and then had some kind of life crisis; preventing them from violating anonymity in another collection; a past case when an author in a very bad mental state posted a depressed, despairing diary entry about their writer's block INSTEAD of a fic, etc) or protect the recipient (spite fic; DNW fic; giving the author a further chance to update their work and therefore giving the recipient a greater likelihood of reading a finished gift; trying to avoid the author's crisis becoming the recipient's problem). I absolutely welcome further advice from Support, AD&T, and Abuse on means of handling this, but we are trying to do what we see as our jobs to facilitate good exchange experiences for everyone. We do not necessarily want to protect either participant forever, but we want further opportunity for action and mediation - to warn a participant that they're getting a sucky gift, to prevent them from getting a gift as part of a collection, etc.

-We also want to hold back works for timing reasons (Purim Gifts, Holmstice, etc).

-We would like finer control when sending out gift notifications - especially in cases of staggered works reveals.

-We would like greater transparency for authors and recipients around rejection and moderation. I sense that this is also your concern; we are with you there! One source of stress in exchanges, for me, is a difficulty getting in touch with people to explain why we are rejecting their work. A couple of people suggested on my post that on users' gift pages, and on their works pages (perhaps just visible to them in that latter case), works in a collection should show the status of rejected, approved, or awaiting approval. Or, that when a collection is revealed, creators with unrevealed works should get an automated email, like "This collection was revealed but your work was not revealed as it has been rejected".

-We would like to know what we're supposed to use Awaiting Approval and Rejected lists for.

I look forward to future solutions.

Kind regards, Morbane

This entry is also posted at https://morbane.dreamwidth.org/41615.html. There are comments. Please comment either here or there.

Dear Yuletide Writer 2018

morbane — Sun, 21 Oct 2018 08:35:19 GMT

Hi, and thanks for your interest in my letter, whether you're considering writing for me or just curious about my prompts!

This year for Yuletide, I've asked for:

Drive Angry, a supernatural/action B-movie

The Shadow, a superhero movie based on a radio drama + pulp novels (I only know the movie)

Simoun, a 26-episode fantasy/war anime

Solitaire, a light sci-fi novel by Kelley Eskridge

Soon I Will Be Invincible, a light sci-fi/superhero novel by Austin Grossman

Sucker Punch, a fantasy/action movie

Crossovers or fusions between these fandoms, or between one of these fandoms and another rare fandom I know, are welcome.

On AO3 my username is Morbane.

Do-Not-Wants: harm to hands, addiction and substance abuse, amnesia.

I would prefer not to receive interactive fiction. My ideal gift length is between 200 and 20,000 words; if you're thinking of writing a drabble for me, then the thought is appreciated, but someone else might enjoy your effort more - drabbles are hit-or-miss for me.

General likes

I love original characters, outsider character perspectives, and worldbuilding. I love competence and loyalty. I like uplifting and hopeful messages, and protagonists who champion them. I also like genuinely terrible characters and tragic arcs, and villains with strong motivations and critiques of the protagonists' goals. Characters are welcome in any shade of grey. I like seeing characters screw up and then learn (or not) from their mistakes. I love magical realism, dramatic weather, trains, telepathy, and dragons. I like getting a strong sense of time or place. For porn, I love xeno, voyeurism, dubcon, noncon, telepathy, praise kink, and awkward-but-not-emotionally-disastrous sex; intense oh-god-I-can't-believe-it's-so-good sex; gentle and loving sex. I love emotional intimacy whether or not it comes with physical intimacy. I love mentors and protegé(e) relationships, and relationships between characters who are juggling multiple identities. I love seeing the relationship between two characters at one point in time, and then seeing it again when the relationship is very different. I'm just as interested in break-ups as get-togethers. I like Big Damn Hero moments, and also days in the life, or stories about people who are just trying to make it by in a weird world. I love it when authors incorporate something about which they have enthusiasm or specialized knowledge, however mundane or weird that thing is.

You're welcome to write in past or present tense, and in first, second, or third person. Epistolary and found-media formats are welcome.

Drive Angry (2011)

John Milton (Drive Angry), The Accountant (Drive Angry)

From my sign-up: This B-movie is simultaneously completely over the top and absurdly nonchalant about its plot and the things it expects you to take in its stride. I love that John Milton gets more and more blasé and deadpan the more ridiculous his activities are, from a mid-coitus gunfight to trying to stop the end of the world with... a car.

I also love The Accountant: his complete lack of concern for human propriety combined with flashes of empathy and immense curiosity. I love that he has fun on the job.

And he and John have immense chemistry. Please, please, take the Accountant's curiosity in a natural direction. Or maybe John tries to seduce his way out of Hell. Or they have to work together and their differences only add to the sexual tension.

Porn & shipping welcome - but also, not required. I'd love a worldbuilding fic that tackled such things as, what IS that gun, is Hell similar for everyone, how did King know how to start an apocalypse... I'd love action and further adventure.

More prompts:

The Accountant needs John's help with another breakout

The Accountant needs John's help with a supernatural threat of an entirely different magnitude - maybe a new supernatural war

The Accountant has an enemy; unlikely though it may be, John is the only one who can defend or rescue him

The Accountant is (presumably) an immortal or near-immortal being whose relationship to time is unknown; it might be fun to give them another adventure together in a far-future setting or in the past

John's granddaughter grows up and learns how to summon John back from the dead

Someone else somehow summons John from Hell, as one might summon a demon

John's back in his cell in Hell, but the Accountant is still fascinated by him (escape by seduction/)

On their way back to Hell, John and the Accountant end up somewhere entirely strange - Faery? Another timeline? A land of demons?

Crossovers!!

More about the structure of Hell, the relationship between this universe's Hell and Heaven, Satan's characterization

The events of the movie have gone a small way towards balancing John's account. Hell is therefore a different experience the second time around.

John keeps breaking out of Hell. An exasperated Satan gives John and the Accountant something like a soulbond so that the Accountant can keep track of him

Sex to satisfy curiosity, sex to prove a point or as a competition of prowess, sex where John knows the Accountant could break him in half and/or the Accountant knows that John is a threat to him too, but the danger just makes it better

More general thoughts:
I realise I've typed John all the way through this but, in the movie, he's far more often referred to as Milton. Whoops. Please use whatever feels the most natural to you, author!

Go for Yulebuild? Or Yuleporn? Or Two for One?

The Shadow (1994)

Characters: Margo Lane, Lamont Cranston

From my sign-up: TELEPATHS IN LOVE. Wow I love these two together. I love how strong-willed they both are, and yet how each of them can change his or her mind and concede to the other. I love how clearly they realise that each has skills they can use.

I would love a story in which they look fabulous and are competent. I would love to see them working together; would love to see Margo develop her powers; would love days in the life. I get a sense from the movie of Margo as a character, how she thinks and reacts, but what does she do all day?

Optionally, would also love Shiwan Khan to be a part of the story. Because the Shiwan/Lamont chemistry was through the roof. How about Shiwan does convince Lamont to rule the world with him, and Margo, part of a Resistance, believes that she can seduce Lamont back to the light?

Overall this is a great canon for darker fic or fic that explores the ethical underbelly of vigilantism. Lamont can control minds. When is he most tempted to abuse that? And on the lighter side of dark, does he ever try to make amends in Tibet, or only through his actions in New York?

More prompts:

I would adore references to any real-life events or locations or communities in New York. The film has a nice sense of era - I'd love for you to build on it!

What is Lamont supposed to be doing all day, and what about Margo? Further glimpses of them playing their roles in society would be neat. Does Margo have hobbies? Causes?

Margo and Lamont out together when Lamont is acting his apparent role of rich layabout.

They meet in a completely different way. Any version of 'two telepaths meet each other and develop an attraction, and figure things out' with identity porn or without, is catnip to me.

Slow-burn; maybe it takes them a while after the end of the movie to become lovers, rather than just crime-fighting partners and secret-keepers

Lamont teaching Margo to use her powers - and possibly developing his own.

One of them has to confuse the other for reasons of a mission - for example, Lamont needs Margo to temporarily forget she knows him. (Amnesia DNW waived for this and similar plots.)

Clothing porn. Margo's white dress and green dress were both so pretty. I would eat up descriptions of similar clothing.

There's a throwaway reference to The Shadow having a network not just in New York or even America, but all around the world. How about he and Margo travel together? Does he ever make reparations more directly in Tibet?

AU: Shiwan Khan convinces Lamont to rule the world with him. Margo attempts to seduce the Shadow back to the path of goodness. Or assassinate him.

AU: Shiwan Khan hasn't lost all of his powers. Slowly recovering, he seeks to turn Margo and Lamont against each other.

I love that Margo isn't afraid of Lamont. But it might be wise for her to take his background at least a little seriously. Explore that?

Lamont goes almost too far, in convincing Margo she should be afraid of him.

What does Margo think of the Shadow's "I saved you, so you owe your life to me?" idea?

Would love to see Margo making contact with/ use of some part of the Shadow's network.

Messed-up V-shaped relationships also welcome.

Here's a piece of my id: in a New York under an evil spell, there's a Lamont Cranston who acts as second-in-command to the new ruler... and a Shadow who aids the resistance. What's Margo to think when she learns they're one and the same?

Acting on a strange impulse, a younger (but powerfully gifted) Margo travels to Tibet to meet someone she is convinced is the key to her future.

Role reversal whereby troubled socialite Lamont comes to learn of mysterious, shadowy vigilante Margo would be awesome (perhaps keep Lamont's past with Lamont, though)

More general thoughts:
This would be an especially good canon for Yuleporn and/or Crueltide? :D? Especially using telepathy, hidden identities, and dubcon.

Simoun (Anime)

Characters: Amuria, Neviril, Dominuura, Paraietta

From my sign-up: Please consider this an OR request - you don't have to include all characters. I just picked some I'm fascinated about.

Amuria obviously has a huge impact on the story even though we get to know so little about her. I'd love pre-canon fic that filled out her and Neviril's feelings for each other - or just how she feels about piloting a Simoun, herself.

Neviril didn't grab me on my first watch, but on my second watch, I've become really fond of her. She has so much to do to balance everyone's expectations of her and her own needs. Pre-canon fic, and how she earned her reputation for amazing flying? How she comes to return Aer's feelings?

Paraietta so often is placed in the position of holding everyone else together - though her own feelings are obviously so messy. I'd love a story of what life was like for her in Choir Tempest before the catastrophe at the start of the series. I'd also love more exploration of how she gets to the point we see her at at the end of the series. We do get to see her actions and opinions but I feel like a story that focuses on her would be interesting and awesome. Paraietta/Neviril shipping only if unrequited please.

Dominuura! When she showed up with her mysterious faction connections I thought she was going to be some sort of villainess; I'm still fascinated about her political ties. What was it like for her to join Choir Tempest? What was her previous choir like? What else about sybillae did she learn from her grandfather? Please no Dominuura/Limone sex while Limone is younger than mid teens, and please don't focus on that relationship overall.

And please, more about the world! More about what life is like in Simulacrum generally, on the ground - what the sybillae know of that world, and what that world knows of them. Be my guest if you want to explore gender issues in this canon; the set-up is so fascinating. Time-travel canon-divergent AUs would also be awesome!

More prompts:

Paraietta's backstory; how she became a sibylla; her childhood friendship with Neviril; what it was like to be a member of Chor Tempest before war broke out.

Paraietta's thoughts on spirituality.

Paraietta's thoughts on her eventual chosen gender.

Any kind of canon divergence featuring Paraietta, if you have a plot idea you want to explore with her.

Dominuura's backstory; how she became a sibylla; life in her own Chor before she joined Chor Tempest.

Dominuura's connections with / history with political factions!

Dominuura's thoughts on spirituality vs war.

Chor Tempest as it appeared to her when she joined.

Conversations between Dominuura and her grandfather!

Amuria's pre-series feelings for Neviril

Neviril's pre-series feelings for Amuria

An AU in which both of them survive to enter the war, both with doubts and hopes

Wrench my heart, author, with a pre-canon interaction between Amuria and Neviril that makes a later scene so much more poignant

Amuria lives instead of Neviril!

How Neviril became the Sibylla Aurea - her early training and exploits

A story about Yun, where Paraietta or Dominuura are mentioned only briefly, is welcome - exploring her decisions, or what life is like for her when she takes on Onassia's role.

WORLDBUILDING. Normal life in Argentum! Normal life in Plumbum! Normal life in Simulacrum! Exploration of the gender set-up is of course welcome.

In the ordinary course of events, how do retiring sibyllae choose their path in life?

What's courtship like for ordinary people in this world?

The Emerald Ri Majon of course has the most awe-inspiring effect; are there other Ri Majon with specific unusual effects?

How do sibyllae learn Ri Majon? Neviril mentions books - are there training manuals? A kind of dictionary?

The peacetime uses of other Ri Majon - we've seen Ri Majon for funerals and farewells, what are some others? This would be a great subject for a ~five times fic

What does it feel like to fly?

More general thoughts: I would also be okay with a story in which none of my requested characters appeared! I should really have put that in my sign-up. Sorry. You have my word as mod. Anyway, I repeat, this would be a great canon for worldbuilding (As part of the Yulebuild challenge, or not, as you wish)!

There's something oddly pleasing to me about the combination of a canon with time travel and a canon where people are born without a fixed gender, and can/must choose it; it gives an extra poignancy to what if, when people know they could have made a different choice, on multiple levels. I don't expect you to make anything of that thought but perhaps it is helpful!

Solitaire - Kelley Eskridge

Characters: Jackal, Snow

From my sign-up: I'd love a story about Snow and Jackal and their world, their place in it. Snow and Jackal early in their relationship, against the background of Ko, back when Jackal knew where she belonged in Ko? Snow and Jackal after the end of the book, figuring out what things will look like for the long term? Snow and Jackal figuring out what their life on Ko prepared them for - and what it didn't?

More about the united world order, and its actual ongoing politics and problems, would be great. What do the other Hopes get up to? Are they indeed all show ponies or pawns or do some of them effect positive change? I'd be interested to see what would happen if Jackal's life crossed paths with those of a Hope again. Or, canon divergence in which she continued to be a Hope and found out later, or in a different way.

A story about further effects and uses of the accelerated dream-state technology would also be great.

More prompts:

More uses of the dream technology! More of how Jackal feels about the dream technology.

More of Jackal's education on Ko, and connections and friends she made there, and things they all learned

Early scenes from Jackal's web. Was it predicted that Jackal would pair up with Snow? Did they defy prediction?

At the end of the book, Jackal had a brief respite, but the world media's still after her. What are the issues of the day? How does she handle it?

Snow gets involved in a project that strains her ethics, and Jackal's.

Someone else who survived Jackal's web gets in contact.

Other Hopes are curious about Jackal. Other Hopes have journeys of their own.

The united World Government needs Jackal. Why, and is it worth helping?

Decades down the track, Jackal is confronted by a request to help Ko

Jackal and Neill. His hopes, his goals, his values; whether he did care about her; how he felt as she fell.

Snow and anything outside of Jackal: her own hopes and aspirations, her parents, what might happen for her far beyond canon

Snow during Jackal's incarceration

50 years down the track, Snow and Jackal old together, or either of them old with someone else - what matters to them, how the world has changed

Other corporation-states? More corporation-states?

annnnnything else about worldbuilding

More general thoughts: I really liked the minutiae of project management. I also loved the scenes where Jackal redecorated her new apartment.

Jackal was taught to value authority and the system; it would be interesting to see her push back against that further.

Good fits: the Yulebuild challenge, Misses Clause.

Soon I Will Be Invincible - Austin Grossman

Fatale, Lily

From my sign-up: Please consider this an or request if you prefer - you don't have to include both characters.

Events from Lily's perspective would be rad. What kind of things did she get up to in her villain phase? What did the school and university years look like to her? Is there a kernel of truth to her supervillain origin story? I would love Fatale & Lily hanging out: maybe give me missing scenes in canon that take on more significance later, though I'd also love to see them meet up months or years after the book, on a different footing to how we left them.

And way more for/from Fatale! She's in a better place at the end of the book than at the start, but she's not exactly happy. I'd love to see her next steps, or maybe a few years down the track as someone more confident and reconciled to her identity - or more embittered, perhaps, if you want to give her a different emotional arc.

I'm not a comics reader but I've osmosed a lot of comics superheroes hijinks - if you throw in obvious comics expies, I may not recognize them, but I will probably enjoy them anyway. Please feel free to introduce a wacky villain plot or another overcomplicated plan - or go more serious if you like about the worldbuilding consequences of real superheroes and supervillains.

I'm open to any/all ships.

More prompts:

Lily's origin story from her own perspective.

Lily and Fatale having an honest conversation.

Fatale and Dr. Impossible having an honest conversation.

Lily and Dr. Impossible having an honest conversation.

Back when Lily and Dr. Impossible were dating.

Of Lily, Fatale, and Dr. Impossible, two are forced into an unlikely team-up against the other.

Lily, Fatale, and Dr. Impossible are tangled up with a magical artefact, and equally baffled by it.

Somehow, it's Lily and Fatale who have to save the world.

Space trip!

Someone tries to make more cyborgs modelled after Fatale.

Fatale needs Dr. Impossible's help on behalf of a cyborg friend, not as well designed as she is.

Lily/Fatale shipping of some kind.

Against all probability, Lily/Fatale/Dr. Impossible.

Encounters with any throwaway-line character or event, like the private investigator with centaur hooves, or various jaunts around the solar system!!!

Lily and non-superhero friends. Maybe she kept in touch with someone she knew as Erica?

Fatale and non-superhero friends. Maybe she saves someone and they get in touch and it's not as awkward as she expected? Maybe she's giving an interview to a journalist and the journalist is surprisingly on her side?

Fatale, a decade on, more comfortable in herself.

Alternately, write me something about Galatea.

More general thoughts:
I find everyone in this novel really poignant. There's an obvious theme of us vs. them, where sometimes that's heroes vs. villains, and sometimes it's the superpowered vs. mundane, and sometimes it's those who're part of the clique and those who aren't - and there's an ongoing feeling of anger and threat and defiant isolation. I'd love to see those edges softened into humanity and fulfilment. I'd like: to see the characters do things; to see the characters in happier places; to see more of the characters and their worlds. Go for the Yulebuild challenge? Or Misses Clause?

Sucker Punch (2011)

Rocket, Sweet Pea

From my sign-up: Things I love here: the costumes, the womens' individual aesthetics in the different worlds, the soundtrack. I love the world-switching, and the central idea of facing your problems in a different setting, where the problems are no less difficult, but the rules are different. I love how well that logically and visually supports the Rule of Cool, and that our protagonists face awesome trials but, in these alternate worlds, have awesome strengths.

I love the sisterhood parallel between Baby Doll & her sister, and Sweet Pea & Rocket. It devastated me, the way that played out, and I want ALL THE BACKSTORY and ALL THE FIX-IT. (I also enjoyed the way it devastated me, and exploring the themes of sacrifice and battle in a different way would be fine! People can still die!!) (And for fix it, small is fine - just fix-it for small things or giving deaths more meaning. Or maybe, Sweet Pea gets away.... and one day she comes back for Baby Doll.)

I'd love a story that played straight with the world-hopping and the rest: what was it like for the other women to be picked up and dropped into other worlds? What were the stories, before and after, of the worlds whose conflicts they entered? (Is Baby Doll's dancing truly mesmerizing, or is that only a metaphor/coincidence?)

I want to know so much more about Sweet Pea's and Rocket's history and what brought them here. And for Blondie and Amber too - as long as there's a hint of that for Sweet Pea and Rocket, a story mostly about Blondie's and Amber's lives to this point would be amazing.

I'd love a story that twisted up the worldbuilding. So maybe the asylum is the real, and only real, world: what does that mean for the characters? Or, the club? Or is there a way for them to find a world that isn't always at war and that suits them all? Is there a way to worldhop that saves all the dead characters?)

More prompts:

Alllllll the backstory for Sweet Pea or Rocket or both.

Rocket fix-it! EVERYBODY FIX-IT.

More exploration of the connection between Sweet Pea and Baby Doll

Flip the tables on which world is real! Maybe neither the asylum nor the club is.

Rocket or Sweet Pea's perspective on the worlds their battles take place on.

One of the girls isn't real, or is a ghost, or, not all of them exist in the same world at the same time.

The club is a brief mission, not an extended one.

Superheroine AU. Changeling/ Dark faerie AU. Time travel shenanigans. Groundhog day. Angels and demons AU. Circus AU.

Rocket/Baby Doll shipping; Sweet Pea/OFC shipping.

Crossovers. Whether or not you save anyone else, I'd love to see Sweet Pea turn up in some other canon after the events of the film. Or, the Sucker Punch women turn up in another canon for one of their battles!

4th-wall-breaking! I love the idea of characters saving themselves by literally refusing to be part of a narrative.

I love the idea of characters saving themselves by saving others. I love the idea of characters saving others by saving themselves.

More general thoughts:
This is a polarising movie and I'm one who really enjoys it. I love the different fantasy worlds and the bitter, brutal glamour of the club; I love Baby Doll's and Sweet Pea's grief and anger that carries through the asylum setting. I love the way the themes of self-actualization and sacrifice are used.

You're welcome to disregard the final scene between Baby Doll and the High Roller; I prefer what the film said without it, and as it was unrated, it wasn't part of the movie I saw first in cinemas.

OK with Sweet Pea/Rocket shipping but please don't give me a Sweet Pea/Rocket PWP - something else as well, please!

This would be a good canon for the Two for One challenge - in the Crossovering exchange, I've previously requested Sucker Punch with Bad Blood - Taylor Swift (Music Video), Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Jupiter Ascending (2015), Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Labyrinth (1986), Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena - but please take those merely as a starting point, rather than a restriction. It would also be a good canon for Yulebuild and Misses Clause. This entry is also posted at https://morbane.dreamwidth.org/40711.html. There are comments. Please comment either here or there.

Dear Overcrosser 2018

morbane — Tue, 21 Aug 2018 05:44:39 GMT

This is my letter for the crossovering | Crossovering fic and art exchange for crossover works. We're coming to the end of sign ups - if you love crossovers, go check it out! This is one of my favourite exchanges for the year.

Dear my author, and anyone else who's curious,

This letter is intended to complement my prompts for specific crossovers and fusions. Those prompts can be found on the middle of this page.

General likes

For crossovers and fusions specifically: My favourite things are stories that take note of both canons' worldbuilding and underlying rules and remix them together. I love original characters and outsider viewpoints in crossover fic, and I love stories that create a world that bridges two canons rather than representing one or the other fully faithfully. After that, I most enjoy fusions, and stories that either imply that the two canons always took place in the same world, or use canon-plausible portals/travel.

More generally: I love competence and loyalty. I like uplifting and hopeful messages, and protagonists who champion them. I also like antagonists with strong motivations and critiques of the protagonists' goals. Characters are welcome in any shade of grey. People screwing up and then learning from their mistakes is also welcome. I love magical realism, dramatic weather, trains, telepathy, dragons. For porn, I love dubcon, noncon, telepathy, touch starvation, praise kink, and awkward-but-not-emotionally-disastrous sex. I love mentors and protegé(e)s, and identity porn. (In the context of this exchange, identity porn where a character was always from another universe and has been hiding it for a while might be fun!) I love Big Damn Hero moments, and people who are just trying to make it by in a weird world. I love it when authors incorporate something about which they have a lot of specialized knowledge.

Please don't feel constrained by either my AO3 prompts or my fandom notes. I like a lot of things, and I look forward to receiving something I didn't expect as much as I look forward to you fulfilling my specific prompts.

General dislikes

DNWs: Amnesia; substance abuse, addition, really self-destructive behaviour based on substance abuse; graphic harm to hands.
Exceptions: amnesia is fine in canons where it's already present, such as The Good Place, Interstella 5555, and Dollhouse, if you use it in a similar way to how it's used in canon. I don't want to be surprised by it popping up in a new way that doesn't follow from existing worldbuilding, and I don't want to see it involved with romantic tropes. I hope that leaves you plenty of room to work!

Specific canons

Bad Blood - Taylor Swift (Music Video)
I like the impractical, over-the top costumes and weapons, all the pretty fight sequences, and the giant, inviting gaps in the worldbuilding. Basically, how has any of this come to pass, and what happens next? I feel as though this canon could add an extra layer of fascinating weirdness and drama to any other canon, or another canon could explain it. No particular character preferences, though I'm curious about Headmistress, Arsyn, and the Trinity.
Requesting with: Hunger Games, Jupiter Ascending, Sucker Punch

Black Jewels - Anne Bishop
I love the indulgent fantasy of this canon: psychic powers, loyalty kink, sacrifices, found family, a Chosen One resisting the Corruption of Society... Then there's the "sorting" aspect! Jewel colours, Landens and Blood, different Realms and Races: the most codified parts of this could be great fun to blend with another canon. I'm fascinated by pre-Jaenelle eras, and the fate of Terreille in late-/post-canon times. For characters, I can't think of anyone I dislike, but especial bonus inclusions would be Wilhelmina, Saetan and Sylvia (especially together), and members of Jaenelle's coven, especially if we see them ruling their own Territories.
Requesting with: Dollhouse, Madoka, Person of Interest

Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
This is a recurring fandom for me. I enjoy Lewis' wry asides, and the sense of exploration and discovery, and the animal and mythological characters, and the way that inner and outer quests are tightly bound. I'm fond of all of the Friends of Narnia, though at a guess, Diggory, Polly, Lucy, Edmund, and Jill seem the most interesting to me. I enjoy reading about the White Witch, Archenland, and Tirian and Jewel. Exploring the edge of the map is always fun (especially if going in a direction canon didn't), or lesser-written ages of canon.
Requesting with: Labyrinth, Utena

Dollhouse
I enjoyed the combination of tropey indulgence "these people can be anything for you" / "it's about what you need" with questions of ethics and developing technology that ultimately shook society. My favourite show characters include Caroline, Whiskey, Adelle, Sierra, Priya, Victor, Anthony, and Bennett, though I'm also fond of Topher and Dominic. I'd love seeing the technology, or just the ideas of people evolving through added memories, or people becoming what they need to be according to someone else's whim, incorporated into other canons. I'd also love it if in another modern-day-ish canon, you wrote in subtle or unsubtle hints that Dollhouse events are happening at the same time.
Requesting with: Black Jewels, Madoka, Person of Interest

Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
This canon got to me early and filled me with a love of friendly dragons, telepathic companions, socially mandated sex-pollen, and to a slightly lesser extent, feudal societies rapidly accelerating in technology, and education/journalism/politics through song. Any of those aspects (though especially the dragons) would be great to integrate into another canon, and for a Pern setting, I'm particularly interested in characters making the transition between an Interval and a Pass or vice versa. I like Moreta, Oklina, Debera, F'lar, Lessa, F'nor, Brekke, Manora, and Mirrim especially, if you want to showcase those characters or set them down in another world.
Requesting with: Kingsman, Pokémon

Fairy Tales
I have a lot of favourites, and I really enjoy seeing people dig into their patterns and their quirks. See my previous prompts for the Once Upon a Fic exchange, in subcollections of the parent collection, for some particular favourites; I am also fond of ones I've written in in the past. I enjoy the cosy just-world fallacy of nice things happening to nice people & bad things happening to bad people, and I enjoy when this is subverted with a vengeance. I enjoy quests for beautiful magical objects and animal companions. I adore a sense of the weird and the numinous, and especially, rules and quests bigger than oneself, which one can elevate oneself to or past by following.
Requesting with: Greek and Roman Mythology

Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
These movies are among my favourite parts of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I like the balance of non-stop quips and feelings that run deep. I love Gamora & Nebula's relationship, and Rocket & Groot's relationship, and am very fond of Quill, and enjoy the overall sense of found family. I like the potential for either saving the galaxy or going on a totally ridiculous (and irresponsibly executed) mission. I have also seen Infinity War; feel free to either ignore or incorporate those events.
Requesting with: Interstella 5555, Silver Metal Lover, Tiger & Bunny

Greek and Roman Mythology
I like the sense of the gods' human or super-human emotions juxtaposed with their powers; in every way, they are larger than life. As with fairy tales, I like the sense of a different logic to the world. In contrast to fairy tales, I like exploring the sense of inherent unfairness I get from many mythological tales: disproportionate punishments and rages, senseless fates; the great imbalance between gods and men. I love the idea of nymphs and dryads and nereids, and other elemental figures. Animal and tree transformation stories are interesting to me. Some figures and stories that have particularly captured my imagination: Cupid and Psyche; Prometheus; Pandora; Orpheus and Eurydice; Apollo and Artemis; Demeter, Persephone, and Hades; and Amalthea, Atalanta, Hestia, Mercury, and Chrysaor, though I don't really know much about those last five. (If treating with Persephone and Hades, I prefer versions where she was seized against her will, whether or not there was reconciliation later.) Sorry about the mix of Roman and Greek names! Please use which names feel right for you and the sources you are using.
Requesting with: Fairy Tales

Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
I enjoy the dystopian system and the glory of the Capitol's tech set against the justified fury of the Districts. I enjoy the relationship between Victors and Tributes, and how even if you win it's not remotely over. Worldbuilding welcome; other canon characters in the system welcome. For canon characters, I'm particularly fond of Katniss, Cinna, Prim, Effie Trinket, and Haymitch.
Requesting with: Bad Blood, Jupiter Ascending, Sucker Punch

Interstella 5555
Interstella 5555 has the most absurd Plot To Gain Supreme Power I've ever seen, wrapped up in cheerful visuals and Daft Punk's iconic music. I have so many questions! Especially, what's really the deal with this world if it looks just like ours, but one person apparently has the means to kidnap people from other planets? Are there others across the world who similarly have access to secret technology? What happened with the previous kidnappings? I also feel it's very versatile if you want to go either light or dark with your story. All the characters are fun (I'm especially fond of the record studio guy with glasses). If using Stella and Shep, I'd prefer that Shep's crush on Stella not be the main focus of the story.
Requesting with: Guardians of the Galaxy, Silver Metal Lover, Tiger & Bunny

Jupiter Ascending (2015)
So: space bureaucracy, a fully committed teenage girl fantasy, power games, messed up siblings, and part-animal supersoldiers WITH WINGS. There are so many tropey elements that would be fun to mix and match with other canons. I also enjoy Jupiter, Caine, Kira, Kalique, and Seraphi in particular.
Requesting with: Bad Blood, Hunger Games, Sucker Punch

Kingsman (Movies)
I like the sense of fun and high stakes and the love of Bond; I love the feats of timing and athleticism and the loyalty kink. I really like the mentor-mentee bonds, whether between Harry and Eggsy, or Merlin and Eggsy and Roxy (I also ship Harry/Eggsy, Harry/Merlin, Merlin/Eggsy, Merlin/Roxy, various threesomes among those) and I love Eggsy and Roxy as teammates. Original characters also welcome. Feel free to handwave the second movie; feel free to handwave deaths and similar aspects of the status quo. Individual Statesman characters were fun, but the organization as a whole tipped over into "too silly" for me. (Yes, I know, hypocritical.)
Requesting with: Dragonriders of Pern, Pokémon

Labyrinth (1986)
I like the fantastical world, the power of story, and the power of wish and will. I like the exploration of the way expectations shape reality, and I love the range of moods, from frightening to absurd. I love Sarah's friendship with Hogget and Sir Didymus and others, and also her much more complicated relationship with Jareth. I love that she is aware of her own power. I love Jareth’s own changeling, reflective nature. I like to think that we never see all of him. I definitely ship Sarah/Jareth (though, optional!). I'd also love to know more about Jareth's world - and how Sarah's book came to be. A future Toby interests me too. I'd enjoy seeing other canons' characters in a Labyrinth-esque setting or Sarah and/or Jareth interacting with others.
Requesting with: Narnia, Utena

Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
I love the balance of dark and light; I love Madoka's courage and humility; I love Homura's loyalty (obsession) and desperation; I love Kyubey's alien logic and that in its own way it is trying to save the universe. I adore the art, especially of the witch labyrinths. I love the magical girl powers and the ordinary parts of the world, and especially the relationship between Madoka and her mother. I really love everyone. I particularly love the exploration of the dangers of sacrificing yourself to save others, and the conversation Madoka and Junko have about mistakes.
Requesting with: Dollhouse, Person of Interest, Black Jewels

Person of Interest
I like this canon's exploration of applied knowledge as power; I like that disparities of information explicitly lead to enormous power imbalances. I also have an uncomplicated love for the idea that the people with the information are trying to make the world a better place. I love Finch and Reese and their relationship (ship is welcome), I like the Machine and Grace and Zoe Morgan and Control and Fusco, and although I'd prefer she wasn't the only PoI character to show up if you're using PoI characters, I like Shaw. I like the sense of technology inexorably changing society, of things that can't be put back in the box once they've been taken out.
Requesting with: Dollhouse, Madoka, Black Jewels

Pokémon - All Media Types
I love both the utopian image of humans and intelligent-or-sentient animals working together, and the darker and weirder corners of the Pokémon world. I especially love the exciting sense of discoveries to be made and worlds to be explored that has always been a cornerstone of the canon for me. I'm familiar with the anime through Johto, the main game series through Ruby & Sapphire, and Pokémon Go, but if you want to refer to characters and Pokémon from other parts of canon, go ahead - please just include notes for me at the start or end of the work. I like Gold and Silver, and for a handful of Pokémon I particularly like: Golem, Raichu, Cubone, Eevee, Unown, Gastly, Umbreon, Oddish, Bulbasaur, Mareep, Scyther, Dragonair, Absol...
Requested with: Dragonriders of Pern, Kingsman

Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
I love these messy, fierce, imperfect characters against their background of ritual and archetype. I love the straight-faced weirdness of witches and heart-swords and how that merely sets the stage for very petty, very eternal conflicts. Each time I watch the show I have a new favourite character. I don't hate any of them. I'd love to see these characters in any other canons (perhaps pre- or post-Ohtori?), and I'd love to see other characters and canons integrated into Ohtori. More magical realism would be a bonus.
Requesting with: Labyrinth, Narnia

The Silver Metal Lover - Tanith Lee
This is a beloved nostalgia fandom, and one of the things I remember it for mostly fondly is, weirdly enough, Silver and Jane painting their apartment together. I loved Jane discovering herself in all kinds of ways but especially in learning how to learn while she carved out a place in the world that she had the power to change. Anyway. As well as containing that sense of self-empowering domesticity, and the sense of us-against-the-world, I'm hopeful that this is a canon that will cross over well with my other choices because of its emphasis on art and music, and its placement at the cusp of societal change due to robots.
Requesting with: Guardians of the Galaxy, Interstella 5555, Tiger & Bunny

Sucker Punch (2011)
I love the worldhopping and the narrative play regarding whose story this is. I loved its throughline of anger. I enjoyed the sacrifices, though I'd be happy (-ier?) if everyone made it out alive, and the different fields of battle. I love all the "girls", though particularly Baby Doll, and Sweet Pea and Rocket and their relationship.
Requesting with: Bad Blood, Hunger Games, Jupiter Ascending

Tiger & Bunny
I really enjoyed the idea of scripted (or not-so) superheroing, and the exploration of what it meant to be a hero in that context (both the fun sides and the emotionally devastating sides). I enjoyed how all the team played off against each of the others. Kotetsu, Barnaby, Kaede, and Agnes Joubert especially won me over, and Lunatic was a lot of fun to explore, but I'm also very fond of Karina, Keith, Nathan, and Ivan. I'm interested to get a further view of Stern Bild society.
Requesting with: Guardians of the Galaxy, Interstella 5555, The Silver Metal Lover
This entry is also posted at https://morbane.dreamwidth.org/39431.html. There are comments. Please comment either here or there.

Dear DJ 2018

morbane — Thu, 12 Apr 2018 11:10:29 GMT

Dear potential writers/artists/recorders - sorry for the delay! I look forward to any gifts. Thanks for reading.

General Likes

Prompts for All Moments Leading to This - Lucid 3 (Song)
Prompts for The Chain - Fleetwood Mac (Song)
Prompts for Glorious Dawn ft. Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking - John Boswell (Song)
Prompts for Gold Dust Woman - Fleetwood Mac (Song)
Prompts for Instinct - Crowded House (Song)
Prompts for Kemp Owyne (Traditional Song)
Prompts for Outlook for Thursday - DD Smash (Music Video)
Prompts for Stranger Song - Leonard Cohen (Song)
Prompts for Yellow Flicker Beat - Lorde (Song)
Prompts for Der Zwerg | The Dwarf - Franz Schubert (Song)

General Likes

Do-Not-Wants: amnesia, graphic harm to hands, substance abuse/addiction.

Likes:
I love original characters and worldbuilding - and this exchange is wonderful for those. You are welcome to write/draw/record work about any combinations of genders.

Fanfic
I like uplifting and hopeful messages, and protagonists who champion them. I also like genuinely terrible characters and tragic arcs, and villains with strong motivations and critiques of the protagonists' goals. Characters are welcome in any shade of grey. I particularly like seeing competence and loyalty.

I love mentors and protegé(e) relationships, and relationships between characters who are juggling multiple identities. I love seeing the relationship between two characters at one point in time, and then seeing it again when the relationship is very different. I'm just as interested in break-ups as get-togethers. I like Big Damn Hero moments, and also days in the life, or stories about people who are just trying to make it by in a weird world. I really like the trope whereby everyone's the protagonist of their own story, even if they may not appear to be at the centre of the most exciting or meaningful events that are happening.

I love emotional intimacy whether or not it comes with physical intimacy. For porn, I love xeno, voyeurism, dubcon, noncon, telepathy, praise kink, and awkward-but-not-emotionally-disastrous sex; intense oh-god-I-can't-believe-it's-so-good sex; gentle and loving sex.

I love it when authors incorporate something about which they have specialized knowledge, however mundane that thing is.

I love magical realism, dramatic weather, trains, telepathy, and dragons. I like puns and absurdity and banter.

You're welcome to write in past or present tense, and in first, second, or third person. Epistolary and found-media formats are welcome.

Fanart
I really love highly stylised designs in art - geometric patterns, decorative patterns, fancy borders and framings. I like skylines and a sense of distance. I love being able to get a sense of weather from a scene. I love costume details, or character studies done through faces or poses.

I like jewel tones and earth tones and grays best of all. I am less keen on Lisa Frank-esque bright rainbow palettes.

My fic likes also apply here, where relevant (ie for porn preferences and character dynamics).

I don't ask for art as often as I ask for fic, and I am also not an artist. So I apologise if these aren't very helpful notes, and I hope the individual prompts are more helpful.

Podfic
I'm sorry, I really don't know how to prompt for podfic. I'm excited to possibly receive it for Glorious Dawn or Outlook for Thursday, but I must trust to your judgement and skill in deciding what to make and how.

All Moments Leading to This - Lucid 3 (Song)

YouTube
Lyrics
Fanart, Fanfic

Put a wish on a whistling gale for the day ahead
All moments leading to this
I say a prayer for our success and blow it into a kiss

I love the sense of hope and purpose in this song, the sense of outwardly ordinary but inwardly significant change, the sense that decisions have come to fruition. I also get a sense of peace and comfort from the way the narrator is enthralled by the sky and seasons - it's the sense of steadiness and calm that comes from thinking about order and beauty in something so much larger than one's own decisions and problems.

I also love that whatever the narrator is doing, they are doing it with their friends.

Fanart
Any interpretation of the lyrics and tone is welcome! If you want prompts, though, what I specifically imagined when I prompted it is something that conveys the relationship between the narrator & friends and their landscape/journey. A road leading away from a city at sunset. A group of silhouetted figures looking up at the stars. A group or a person on a beach, bending down to touch the waves as they come in. That's the kind of thing I imagined, but seriously, having a piece of extra media to think of when I listen to this song would make me really happy, so do NOT feel bound by those themes specifically.

Fanfic
Write me a story of a warrior (or other person who serves others in some way) who must swear an oath; tell me about someone going back to their home town after college; make this as fantastical or as prosaic if you like. I'll love anything you write if you gesture to the kind of tone I hear in this song, of purpose and awe and community and quiet, shared strength.

Back to top

The Chain - Fleetwood Mac (Song)

YouTube
Lyrics
Fanfic

And if you don't love me now
You will never love me again
I can still hear you saying you would never break the chain

Fanfic
I love the slow gather and build of this song, the references to the light and weather that make everything seem bigger than the narrator, and of course the stakes and drama.

Why the ultimatum? Why this last chance? I want an answer to the questions this song raises. Some that occur to me: a fairy-tale like task whereby one lover must recognise or claim the other at a certain moment, or forever forfeit them; or, two people are forced to keep up the outward appearances of a relationship (and are thus 'chained' together) while their private feelings are a lot more complicated.

When I first heard this song, I thought that the addressee had to *break* the chain (some other loyalty or compulsion affected them) in order to love the narrator. (For example, someone pleading with their lover to break up with the lover's current partner and be with them instead.) But the lyrics 'chain, keep us together' suggests otherwise, and that 'I can still hear you saying you would never break the chain' is an accusation from the narrator that the addressee has broken their promise. Is it either of those, or something stranger, or simpler?

Something fantastical would be hugely welcome, or a study of these characters that makes them both sympathetic and flawed.

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Glorious Dawn ft. Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking - John Boswell (Song)

YouTube
Lyrics
Fanfic, Podfic

The cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths
Of exquisite interrelationships
Of the awesome machinery of nature

This song is a wonderful tribute and a wonderful collection of concepts and I find it very moving. RIP, Sagan; RIP, Hawking. I'm interested in either of two kinds of science fiction: fictional treatments of real past and present scientific thought and discoveries, especially centred on astronomy or linguistics, OR speculation (as tropy or serious as you like) about our near future and our next explorations.

Fanfic
Tell me about a scientist or thinker who fascinates you; flesh out their contexts and method and aims. Or tell me about visiting other worlds, seeing that 'dawn', ways in which humanity's destruction may be averted. It's a song that balances hope and danger; glimpses of downfall and failure are fine, but I'd like an overall sense of hope, or bittersweetness at worst.

Podfic
Because this is autotuned & remixed from speech clips, an audio treatment seemed particularly apropos. Happy to receive a performance of a story inspired by the above prompts, but also, maybe a speech from a leader of a new space colony, or the report of new, fictional scientific discovery? Or however you want to play with a spoken medium and the themes of this song.

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Gold Dust Woman - Fleetwood Mac (Song)

YouTube
Lyrics
Fanfic

Heartless challenge
Pick your path and I'll pray

Fanfic
OK, so I'd be down for something mundane and bitter and jealous and passionate - I can't tell if "did she make you cry" is sympathetic or gloating, and maybe it's both. The song could be full of terrible people, or at least include a person who projects their own issues onto others. (Though, no drugs please.)

And I'd also love a fantasy epic that foregrounds a clash between a reign and a romance. One thing this makes me imagine is a deposed queen who has survived and is on a quest to regain her throne, and has fallen in with some traders-cum-bandits, preferably led by a woman. After initial loathing, each gains the grudging respect of the other! Sparks fly!

Can the pale, lethal dragon-woman love someone and hold onto her power?

Ancient queen makes me imagine a reincarnation subplot... or perhaps the gold dust woman is indeed inhuman. I mean, she could be a shapeshifting dragon. The option's there.

Please don't feel bound by these very specific prompts. The only things I really, really want are a sense of strong emotion and high stakes.

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Instinct - Crowded House (Song)

YouTube
Lyrics
Fanfic

And I'm hanging by a single stitch
Laughing at the stony face of gloom

Fanfic
The familiar refrain: this song includes that combination of ominousness and hope that I find irresistible. Your interpretation, please! I'd equally love something purely mundane, something highly fantastical, or some kind of blend.

Maybe this is a song about a monster hunter: low fantasy, urban fantasy, modern magical realism, or a hunter of metaphorical monsters (white-collar non-victimless crime, for example)?

Maybe this is a song about a monster hunter who falls in love with the monster he (or she, but singer's voice biases me slightly to he) is hunting, oh noes, but I'd like it to work out happily!

Maybe this is a dark/realistic song about falling in love with someone who's bad for you but having the perception, and support, to break out of that pattern and break away.

This is a great song for looking at an individual line and figuring out how to make it make literal sense. What's with the light/fire metaphors?

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Kemp Owyne (Traditional Song)

YouTube (merely one of many versions; the tunes vary)
Lyrics
Fanfic

“It's from this rock I'll never rise,
No man on earth shall set me free
Till Kemp Owen, the king's own son
Shall climb the craig and thrice kiss me.”

I've requested this once or twice in the Once Upon a Fic exchange (once_upon_fic) and it only just occurred to me I could ask for this here, too! So here goes. Dragons and heroes and sorceresses, oh my!

Fanfic
I'm especially drawn to the paradox of a fearsome dragon, created by an evil spell, but not evil in her own nature, and to the difficulty and specificity of the stepmother's condition for breaking the spell. Most importantly: how does Isobel convince Kemp Owyne to save her?

In some versions, she bribes him with fabulous treasures - where did she get them? How does he feel about being bribed? Why does he trust her to take the bribes? Their combat/courtship is really fascinating to me.

And of course, why did the stepmother curse Isobel? The line about all her sorrows lying with Isobel is fascinating - is Isobel some kind of magical scapegoat? And what happens to the stepmother in the end?

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Outlook for Thursday - DD Smash (Music Video)

YouTube
Lyrics
Fanfic, Podfic

Tell me where a weatherman should start
When he's miles from his sunshine...

Impulse in requesting this video: 50% fascination with the song and video, and 50% an urge to share this piece of Kiwiana / New Zealand Gothic with more people.

You're welcome to focus on the song and only hint at the video. Though, for me, the video suffuses the song with both absurdity and paranoia. I don't have good questions, just "what?" and "why?"

Fanfic
Is this just a song about a weather reporter (and their love life)? Is there a hint of magical realism? Is something really bad or good going to happen on Thursday (after we get through Wednesday)? The chorus and Your guess is as good as mine is so charming and weird and relatable as a juxtaposition against the jargon of future calculations based on all available data. And as well as charming it's oddly ecstatic, cathartic to me. Maybe Thursday will be incredible.

Podfic
This seems like a good one for podfic since it's based on the concept of a weather reporter/announcement - maybe do something with that? I also think it'd be fun to design a response to this that is essentially a deadpan narration of the music video, explaining it however you like.

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Stranger Song - Leonard Cohen (Song)

YouTube
Lyrics
Fanart

And while he talks his dreams to sleep
you notice there's a highway
that is curling up like smoke above his shoulder.

Fanart
This song has such amazing, vivid, enthralling images - I would love to see your interpretations. An illustration of any of the images would be great and so would anything that captures the sense I get of uncertainty and wariness and also hope.

Specific prompts:
-That meeting on the shore under the bridge - perhaps from a distance? I kind of imagine two people dwarfed by their landscape, and maybe by construction equipment, depending on how you interpret 'that they are building'. In the song, I love the idea of a physical landscape that is just as nascent, inchoate, as the time of tomorrow - I have NO idea how you'd represent that visually, but I mention it in case that sparks useful ideas.

-The highway curling up like smoke, or trying the handle of the road - any interpretation, but maybe a figure in the centre of a picture with roads (rivers, train lines) stretching away in all directions from them like the rays of a star?

-The Dealer/Narrator/you/Stranger as Tarot card figure in the style of your favourite Tarot deck - lots of different ways to interpret this, as I have already seen, and more would be lovely!

-A still life of a table with cards, a train schedule, and whatever else seems suitable to you - possibly other, odder things, like a golden cyborg hand or an imagined secret chart of hearts/roads/the past and future.

-'reaching for the sky just to surrender'

-A departure or arrival scene at a train platform.

-The burden of dreams.

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Yellow Flicker Beat - Lorde (Song)

YouTube
Lyrics
Fanfic

My blood is a flood of rubies, precious stones
It keeps my veins hot, the fire's found a home in me

Fanfic
I'd love for someone to dig into all these images and allusions and hints! It doesn't have to be sci-fi or fantasy, but that's what I imagine: a princess questing through nightmares for a year; an android created to guard her people, now in rebellion against their leaders; whatever the person or being is that has 'smoother than storm' as a meaningful reference point. Please make one or two of these metaphors literal in some way - that would be amazing.

Is the comment about locking people up a threat, or a statement of fact? Have they already begun? And what are the consequences?

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Der Zwerg | The Dwarf - Franz Schubert (Song)

YouTube
Lyrics
Fanfic

"It is true I will hate myself forever
for having bestowed death on you with my own hand;
but now, pale, you must go to your early grave."

Fanfic
I'm not usually drawn to tragedies, but this scene in the boat gives me so many questions and fascinates me. Centrally: why must she die? I think ideally it would be more than an apparent murder-suicide that both of the parties are somehow convinced is necessary... but I could be sold on the awful, awful drama of that too. Does fate truly command them?

I assume the song is glossing over/romanticising the idea of strangulation, but maybe the dwarf has the gift of imparting painless death - and it's a previous use of this gift that has brought them to this point?

What part did the king play?

If this is the price the queen must pay, what crimes did she commit - or is this a sacrifice with which she buys something dear?

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This entry is also posted at https://morbane.dreamwidth.org/39254.html. There are comments. Please comment either here or there.

Dear Yuletide Writer 2017

morbane — Mon, 09 Oct 2017 22:55:33 GMT

Hi, and thanks for your interest in my letter, whether you're considering writing for me or just curious about my prompts!

This year for Yuletide, I've asked for:

Drive Angry, a 2011 standalone supernatural/action B-movie;

Pegasus, a YA fantasy novel that is the first book, but probably the only book, in an incomplete trilogy by Robin McKinley;

The Shadow, a 1994 superhero movie based on a radio drama + pulp novels (I only know the movie);

Simoun, a 26-episode fantasy/war anime from 2006;

Soon I Will Be Invincible, a standalone light sci-fi/superhero novel by Austin Grossman;

and Sucker Punch, a 2011 standalone fantasy(?)/action movie.

General likes

I love original characters, outsider character perspectives, and worldbuilding. I love competence and loyalty. I like uplifting and hopeful messages, and protagonists who champion them. I also like genuinely terrible characters and tragic arcs, and villains with strong motivations and critiques of the protagonists' goals. Characters are welcome in any shade of grey. I like seeing characters screw up and then learn (or not) from their mistakes. I love magical realism, dramatic weather, trains, telepathy, and dragons. I like getting a strong sense of time or place. For porn, I love xeno, voyeurism, dubcon, noncon, telepathy, praise kink, and awkward-but-not-emotionally-disastrous sex; intense oh-god-I-can't-believe-it's-so-good sex; gentle and loving sex. I love emotional intimacy whether or not it comes with physical intimacy. I love mentors and protegé(e) relationships, and relationships between characters who are juggling multiple identities. I love seeing the relationship between two characters at one point in time, and then seeing it again when the relationship is very different. I'm just as interested in break-ups as get-togethers. I like Big Damn Hero moments, and also days in the life, or stories about people who are just trying to make it by in a weird world. I love it when authors incorporate something about which they have specialized knowledge, however mundane that thing is.

You're welcome to write in past or present tense, and in first, second, or third person. Epistolary and found-media formats are welcome.

Drive Angry (2011)

John Milton (Drive Angry), The Accountant (Drive Angry)

From my sign-up: This B-movie is simultaneously completely over the top and absurdly nonchalant about its plot and the things it expects you to take in its stride. I love that John Milton gets more and more blasé and deadpan the more ridiculous his activities are, from a mid-coitus gunfight to trying to stop the end of the world with... a car.

I also love The Accountant: his complete lack of concern for human propriety combined with flashes of empathy and immense curiosity. I love that he has fun on the job.

And he and John have immense chemistry. Please, please, take the Accountant's curiosity in a natural direction. Or maybe John tries to seduce his way out of Hell. Or they have to work together and their differences only add to the sexual tension.

Despite all the above, this is actually an or request! You do not have to include both characters if you don't want to. I am really curious to see John's life explored, not just his afterlife. What happened? How did he get the gun and get out of Hell? What made him the kind of person who could do that? Serious, ridiculous, either way. And the Accountant, TELL ME ABOUT HIM. Tell me about a previous assignment. Tell me about his conversations with the Devil, a 'quiet man actually, thoughtful ... well read'. What does he do when not chasing escaped sinners? (Surely they don't escape very often...)

Additional optional thoughts: With Milton/The Accountant, part of the appeal is in dialling it up to 11. Both of them are physically superhuman - John appears to have some kind of healing factor (at least on Earth?) (or maybe it's to allow him to be endlessly tortured in Hell?) and the Accountant has unbelievable strength as well as other tricks. I love the idea that John can't be sure the Accountant won't casually break him in half. I also love the idea that the Accountant might have zero human sexual experience - I'd love it if he brought a somewhat alien perspective to the encounter - though it also might be fun if he surprises John by being very experienced. (Sexual prowess competition! It could be hilarious.) I am so up for either of them impressing the other or being taken by surprise about how much they're into it.

Also: what is that gun? Does Hell have a treasury of far-too-powerful objects? Is it security against Heaven? What is the relationship between Heaven and Hell in this universe?

Another super tangential thing I'd be into: John's granddaughter grows up to be some kind of kick-ass destroyer of the supernatural. Possibly Milton appears to her occasionally, or The Accountant checks in on her every now and then?

Pegasus - Robin McKinley

Characters: Ebon, Sylvi

From my sign-up: I love Ebon and Sylvi's close partnership, how each of them thinks the other is the best thing ever, and how excited each is to show the other their world. Include romance or don't, include sexual feelings or don't, just please keep the emphasis on how important each is to the other. I could really go for one of them saving the other from peril. Or write me Sylvi and Ebon working on a normal activity together and using different respective skills. I love the cosy aspects of the worldbuilding - skyholds and dams and fine pegasus paper. More please.

Obviously fix-it for the end of the book is welcome, but I'd also be interested in seeing how Ebon and Sylvi grow and change if they have to spend a long time apart.

I'm also fascinated by the weird comedy of manners whereby the human culture is smothered in meaningless ritual, and yet there's a dark core to it where maybe it really is protecting them from something. What's really going on? TELL ME. Tell me whether rocs really come from another world and why pegasi and humans are Inherently Inimical. What's the real story with Fthoom?

And if you want to sideline Sylvi and Ebon entirely, I'm interested in any of the following: Minial and what it's like to be a Speaker; Redfora and Oraan; Erisika; a similar historical minor character. I'd love it if you used a minor character to expand the hints we get about the history and world.

Additional optional thoughts: Mostly I just want to know more. I have this entirely silly theory about the rocs and what they mean to the pegasi - if any of that appeals to you, please run with it, but if not, the only relevant takeaway is that it fascinates me to try to put together what clues McKinely gave us about this world. So the magicians are trying to prevent humans and pegasi from coming too close? Surely this is covering up for something. And what on earth is that underground sea?

Maybe either Ebon or Sylvi learns something that Changes Everything, and for at least a brief time, they can't let the other know. Tragedy! I'd love it if separating Ebon and Sylvi really came back to bite the wizards, but I'd also enjoy a story in which Fthoom is some kind of tragic hero (maybe still also an arrogant bully, though) and he's actually kind of right. Maybe run with the idea that a lie is the strongest when mixed with truth? Maybe Fthoom believes everything he's said. Maybe the rocs do too. But even so, maybe there's another way.

Totally different idea: maybe the humans and pegasi didn't form such a close alliance when they first discovered each other. Maybe the pegasi said, "Great! You're welcome to this land, just keep the taralians down, please. We'll be over thataway. Bye!" It's not as if the humans ever go fight the pegasi predators in the actual pegasus territory. Maybe the cultures had as little contact as possible - until, somehow, Ebon and Sylvi happened.

The Shadow (1994)

Characters: Margo Lane, Lamont Cranston

From my sign-up: TELEPATHS IN LOVE. Wow I love these two together. I love how strong-willed they both are, and yet how each of them can change his or her mind and concede to the other. I love how clearly they realise that each has skills they can use.

Would love to see them working together; would love to see Margo develop her powers; would love days in the life. I get a sense from the movie of Margo as a character, how she thinks and reacts, but what does she do all day?

Optionally, would also love Shiwan Khan to be a part of the story. Because the Shiwan/Lamont chemistry was through the roof. How about Shiwan does convince Lamont to rule the world with him, and Margo, part of a Resistance, believes that she can seduce Lamont back to the light?

Overall this is a great canon for darker fic or fic that explores the ethical underbelly of vigilantism. Lamont can control minds. When is he most tempted to abuse that? And on the lighter side of dark, does he ever try to make amends in Tibet, or only through his actions in New York?

Additional optional thoughts: As bonus extras, I'd love references to real events and places and cultures in 1930s New York. I'd love it if Margo got to swan about wearing something pretty - her dresses in the movie were so, so pretty.

There's a throwaway reference to The Shadow having a network not just in New York or even America, but all around the world. How about he and Margo travel together? For another plot, maybe one of them has to confuse the other for reasons of a mission - for example, Lamont needs Margo to temporarily forget she knows him. (Amnesia DNW is waived here or for similar things.) Or maybe: Shiwan Khan hasn't lost all of his powers. Slowly recovering, he seeks to turn Margo and Lamont against each other.

Or, for canon-divergence ideas: maybe it takes them a while after the end of the movie to become lovers, rather than just crime-fighting partners and secret-keepers. I'd love to see a slow-burn version of their relationship!

Simoun (Anime)

Characters: Dominuura, Paraietta

From my sign-up: Just one of these two characters is fine! I picked the two who interest me most as individual characters and as ways into the world of Simulacrum.

Paraietta so often is placed in the position of holding everyone else together - though her own feelings are obviously so messy. I'd love a story of what life was like for her in Choir Tempest before the catastrophe at the start of the series. I'd also love more exploration of how she gets to the point we see her at at the end of the series. We do get to see her actions and opinions but I feel like a story that focuses on her would be interesting and awesome. I'd rather no requited Paraietta/Neveril, but other shipping for Paraietta is welcome.

Dominuura! When she showed up with her mysterious faction connections I thought she was going to be some sort of villainess; I'm still fascinated about her political ties. MORE PLEASE, MORE EVERYTHING. Except please no Dominuura/Limone - please keep that platonic or offscreen. What was it like for her to join Choir Tempest? What was her previous choir like? What else about sybillae did she learn from her grandfather?

And please, more about the world! More about what life is like in the mundane world, on the ground - what the sybillae know of that world, and what that world knows of them. Be my guest if you want to explore gender issues in this canon; the set-up is so fascinating.

Additional optional thoughts: Other characters I'd be interested in: Yun, the Plumbish priestesses, Amuria. If you want to worldbuild, especially, with any of them, that would be fantastic.

I'm so fascinated to imagine what gender even means to a people who all begin with the same default gender. Especially when that isn't universal across the world. What informs what is considered male or female? Why would someone choose one or the other? Is sexuality still innate - like, might someone choose to become a man because they know the love of their life is primarily attracted to men? Is there a historical bias because the system of the Spring didn't always exist? Though that could play out in really tragic ways, so I'd also be happy with an everyone-is-pansexual scenario.

Exploration of gender can be a complicated thing to ask for, or to try to write. Good luck! Please try to avoid making this story a pointed lesson about how gender works in our world. I appreciate your efforts either way.

Soon I Will Be Invincible - Austin Grossman

Doctor Impossible, Fatale, Lily

From my sign-up: I would love any two of these characters to appear.

Events from Lily's perspective would be rad. What kind of things did she get up to in her villain phase? What did the school and university years look like to her? Is there a kernel of truth to her supervillain origin story? I would love Fatale & Lily hanging out: maybe give me missing scenes in canon that take on more significance later, though I'd also love to see them meet up months or years after the book, on a different footing to how we left them.

I'd also love to see Lily and Doctor Impossible together - for whatever quality of together, enemies, friends, lovers, none of the above. What did she see in him? Or Fatale and Doctor Impossible meeting up, either having difficult, awkward, spiky, interesting conversations, or being forced to work together for some reason, or matching wits on opposite sides of a mission. Is there an AU in which Fatale is on the side of evil or chaos and Lily and Dr Impossible are on the side of order or good?

And as well as something with spiky, adversarial character dynamics, I'd also love something that tended towards crack or fluff. Fatale has to rescue either Lily or Dr Impossible from a plan gone wrong. Hopefully a ridiculous plan. Dr Impossible tries to recruit Fatale with a false identity. One of them provides an emotional perspective the other needs. Etc.

Additional optional thoughts: I'd also love encounters with any throwaway-line character or event, like the private investigator with centaur hooves, or various jaunts around the solar system. I'd love a story about Galatea instead of the characters I've selected, if you prefer.

More about cyborgs in general would be great. Does Fatale find herself allied with someone else like her (or, even, someone modelled after her)? Is what she was told about her backstory true, and does she find more about it, or is the truth even weirder?

Sucker Punch (2011)

Rocket (Sucker Punch), Sweet Pea (Sucker Punch)

From my sign-up: This is a polarising movie and I'm one of the people who really enjoys it. I love the different fantasy worlds and the bitter, brutal glamour of the club; I love Baby Doll's and Sweet Pea's grief and anger that carries through the asylum setting. I love the way the themes of self-actualization and sacrifice are used.

I'd love backstory for Rocket and Sweet Pea (extrapolating from canon, or completely AU if you want), or some kind of fix-it fic, for Rocket especially or for as many people and situations as you can manage. I'd love if you treated a different world than the asylum or the brothel as the "real" world, or gave Rocket and Sweet Pea their own unusual perspectives on the various worlds - how did they see the places they were transported to? Was every woman in a different universe, working in parallel, perhaps? I'd love if if you invented an entirely new world for our heroines to perform daring missions in. And I'd love an exploration of why Sweet Pea is the film's first and final girl.

Setting AUs, especially unusual settings (circus? angels vs. demons? a faerie court?) would be as welcome as canon divergence AUs; feel free to remix the whole movie to give me something that hits certain plot points or characters or parts of the setting I can recognize, but is otherwise quite radically different.

Additional optional thoughts: You're welcome to give me a story that fits my prompts but is mostly about Baby Doll or Amber or Blondie - though I'd prefer Rocket and Sweet Pea play an important part. You're welcome to disregard the final scene between Baby Doll and the High Roller; I tended to prefer what the film said without it, and as it was unrated, it wasn't part of the movie I saw first in cinemas.

No incest please for this canon.

I loved the moment Sweet Pea broke the fourth wall to criticise the trope of "sexy" mental health patient; I'd love any other moment in which she or another character saves herself by literally refusing to be part of a narrative. Or is there a moment when being genre-savvy saves them?

What's the motivation of the Old Man? Is he a real, separate person who sees all the world, or entirely imaginary? If imaginary, why is he the figure Baby Doll imagines? This entry is also posted at https://morbane.dreamwidth.org/37754.html. There are comments. Please comment either here or there.

Cross My Heart: Dear Crossovering Creator 2017

morbane — Mon, 31 Jul 2017 00:17:15 GMT

This is my letter for the crossovering | Crossovering fic and art exchange for crossover works. Sadly, sign-ups have closed and this letter is VERY late, but I encourage anyone who's interested to check out the prompts.

Dear my creator / interested readers:

This letter is intended to complement my prompts for specific crossovers and fusions. Those prompts can be found here: middle of this page.

General likes

For crossovers and fusions specifically: Art can be any style of combining canons, but for stories, my favourite things are stories that take note of both canons' worldbuilding and underlying rules and combine them. I love original characters and outsider viewpoints in crossover fic, and I love stories that create a world that bridges two canons rather than representing one or the other fully faithfully. After that, I most enjoy fusions, and stories that either utilize canon-plausible portals/travel, or imply that the two canons always took place in the same world.

More generally: I love competence and loyalty. I like uplifting and hopeful messages, and protagonists who champion them, and also villains with strong motivations and critiques of the protagonists' goals. Characters are welcome in any shade of grey. People screwing up and then learning from their mistakes is also welcome. I love magical realism, dramatic weather, trains, telepathy, dragons. For porn, I love dubcon, noncon, telepathy, praise kink, and awkward-but-not-emotionally-disastrous sex. I love mentors and protegé(e)s, and identity porn. I love Big Damn Hero moments, and people who are just trying to make it by in a weird world. I love it when authors and artists incorporate something about which they have a lot of specialized knowledge.

Art likes
I really love highly stylised art - geometric patterns, decorative patterns, fancy borders and framings. I like skylines and a sense of distance. I love costume details, or character studies done through faces or poses. However, I don't consider myself particularly visually literate / good at figuring out ambiguous images, so if you're deciding between something very simple, and something very complicated and ambitious, I think I'd prefer the former if it would ensure I can easily interpret what you have created. I like jewel tones and earth tones and grays. I am less keen on neons and Lisa Frank rainbow palettes and pastels, unless contrasted with black/grays/muddier tones.

Please don't feel constrained by either my AO3 prompts or my fandom notes. I like a lot of things, and I look forward to receiving something I didn't expect as much as I look forward to you fulfilling my specific prompts.

General dislikes

DNWs: Amnesia, esp. tropey amnesia; substance abuse, addition, really self-destructive behaviour based on substance abuse; graphic harm to hands.
Exceptions: canon-style amnesia is OK for The Good Place and Dollhouse.

Specific canons

Black Jewels - Anne Bishop
I love some of the most indulgent parts of this canon: psychic powers, loyalty kink, sacrifices, found family, a Chosen One resisting the Corruption of Society... all of the most codified parts of this could be great fun to blend with another canon. I'm also fascinated by pre-Jaenelle eras, and the fate of Terreille in late-/post-canon times. For characters, I'm particularly fond of Wilhelmina, Saetan and Sylvia (especially together), and members of Jaenelle's coven, especially if we see them ruling their own Territories.
Requesting with: Dollhouse, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Person of Interest

The Cabin in the Woods (2011)
I enjoyed the tropey fun, the way the five victims did and didn't fit their archetypes, the underlying bureaucracy and desensitization to evil, the elder god worldbuilding, and the eventual menagerie of mayhem. Saving people, or changing the scenario so it's not quite so lethal, would be welcome; so would revelling in the murder. People rebelling against the sacrifices are particularly welcome, and if you want to explore other locations or points in time, that would be excellent.
Requesting with: Pokémon, Hunger Games, Greek & Roman Mythology

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV)
I love and despair over Rebecca, and enjoy the line she walks between being a terrible person and being someone I root for. I also especially love Greg, Heather, and Valencia, and Darryl and White Josh. Plots relating to any of Rebecca, Heather, or Valencia's interests and/or jobs are welcome; so are incredibly weird scenarios involving past acquaintances, West Covina life, and narrating one's own life. Would kind of prefer Rebecca not let anyone down horribly during the course of the fic, but it is sort of par for the course here.
Requesting with: The Good Place, The Middleman

Dollhouse
I enjoyed the combination of tropey indulgence "these people can be anything for you" / "it's about what you need" with questions of ethics and developing technology that ultimately shook society. My favourite show characters include Caroline, Whiskey, Adelle, Sierra, Priya, Victor, Anthony, and Bennett, though I'm also fond of Topher and Dominic. I'd love seeing the technology, or just the ideas of people evolving through added memories, or people becoming what they need to be according to someone else's whim, incorporated into other canons. I'd also love it if in another modern-day-ish canon, you wrote in subtle or unsubtle hints that Dollhouse events are happening at the same time.
Requesting with: Person of Interest, MCU, Black Jewels

Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
This canon got to me early and filled me with a love of friendly dragons, telepathic companions, socially mandated sex-pollen, and to a slightly lesser extent, feudal societies rapidly accelerating in technology, and education/journalism/politics through song. Any of those aspects (though especially the dragons) would be great to integrate into another canon, and for a Pern setting, I'm particularly interested in characters making the transition between an Interval and a Pass or vice versa. I like Moreta, Oklina, Debera, F'lar, Lessa, F'nor, Brekke, Manora, and Mirrim especially, if you want to showcase those characters or set them down in another world.
Requesting with: Kingsman, Pokémon

Fairy tales
I have a lot of favourites, and I really enjoy seeing people dig into their patterns and their quirks. See my previous prompts for the Once Upon a Fic exchange here, here, and here for some particular favourites; I am also fond of ones I've written in in the past. I enjoy the cosy just-world fallacy of nice things happening to nice people & bad things happening to bad people, and I enjoy when this is subverted with a vengeance. I enjoy quests for beautiful magical objects and animal companions.
Requesting with: Utena, Madoka, Labyrinth, Sucker Punch

The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
I enjoyed this as a cosy fantasy that ticked boxes for loyalty kink, worldbuilding, and competence. I enjoy Csevet, Csethiro, Cala, Beshelar, Maia, Nurevis, Idra, Csoru, and Nedaö. Past and future eras of the Ethuveraz would also be welcome. In my sign-up, I mostly prompted for a fusion between Rogue One & The Goblin Emperor using Baze & Chirrut, but as I write this, it might also be neat to see Maia as a leader in some obscure corner of the Star Wars universe, slowly learning to exercise power to do good and resist the Empire, or for Csethiro to try to follow Jedi teachings.
Requesting with: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

The Good Place (TV)
I really enjoy the wit and banter in this canon, and all of the relationships between Tahani and Eleanor and Chidi; Michael and Janet are great; Jason is also a lot of fun, I just like the others all a little more. I adore Michael's "Humans! So weird!" schtick, and Janet's aggressive cheerfulness. Inclusion of any of Tahani or Eleanor or Chidi, in any combination, would be a plus if you are using Good Place characters. But I'm also just fascinated to see other characters engage with the world of the Good Place (and potential Bad and Medium Places). Confuse characters about whether they're on Earth or elsewhere and have fun.
Requested with: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, The Middleman

Greek and Roman Mythology
I'm afraid I'm less familiar with the Aenead and the Iliad, and more familiar with stories of the gods adapted from Ovid and Hesiod. I enjoy the sense of the gods' power juxtaposed with their very human vanity and pride and weakness. Stories about people under their favour/wrath are interesting - the gods themselves don't need to appear. Naiads and dryads etc are also cool! Some favourite figures: Hestia, Pandora, Hermes, Hades, Demeter - but please don't feel restricted to those.
Requesting with: Pokémon, Cabin in the Woods, Hunger Games

Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
I like the extremely inventive hodgepodge worldbuilding - there's so much to play with, and it's also fun to pick at the ways it doesn't fit together. Teacher and student characters both welcome, especially Ginny, Tom, and Luna, though I'm less keen on Snape. Inclusion of bits of cultures and lores that are briefly mentioned in the books would be really cool.
Requesting with: Person of Interest, Madoka, Tomorrowland

Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
I enjoy the dystopian system and the glory of the Capitol's tech set against the justified fury of the Districts. I enjoy the relationship between Victors and Tributes, and how even if you win it's not remotely over. Worldbuilding welcome; other canon characters in the system welcome. For canon characters, I'm particularly fond of Katniss, Cinna, Prim, Effie Trinket, and Haymitch.
Requesting with: Pokémon, Cabin in the Woods, Greek and Roman Mythology

Kingsman (Movies)
I like the sense of fun and somewhat simplistic morality; I love the feats of timing and athleticism and the loyalty kink. I really like the mentor-mentee bonds, whether between Harry and Eggsy, or Merlin and Eggsy and Roxy, and I love Eggsy and Roxy as teammates. Original characters also welcome. I have only been mildly spoiled for upcoming movie, and will probably see it soon after it comes out. Feel free to handwave deaths and similar aspects of the status quo.
Requesting with: Dragonriders of Pern, Pokémon

Labyrinth (1986)
I like the fantastical world, the power of story, and the power of wish and will. I like the exploration of the way expectations shape reality, and I love the range of moods, from frightening to absurd. I love Sarah's friendship with Hogget and Sir Didymus and others, and also her much more complicated relationship with Jareth. I love that she is aware of her own power. I love Jareth’s own changeling, reflective nature. I like to think that we never see all of him. I definitely ship Sarah/Jareth (though, optional!). I'd also love to know more about Jareth's world - and how Sarah's book came to be. A future Toby interests me too. I'd enjoy seeing other canons' characters in a Labyrinth-esque setting or Sarah and/or Jareth interacting with others.
Requesting with: Madoka, Utena, Sucker Punch, fairy tales

Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
I love the balance of dark and light; I love Madoka's courage and humility; I love Homura's loyalty (obsession) and desperation; I love Kyubey's alien logic and that in its own way it is trying to save the universe. I adore the art, especially of the witch labyrinths. I love the magical girl powers and the ordinary parts of the world, and especially the relationship between Madoka and her mother. I really love everyone. I particularly love the exploration of the dangers of sacrificing yourself to save others, and the conversation Madoka and Junko have about mistakes.
Requesting with: Labyrinth, Utena, Sucker Punch, fairy tales

Marvel Cinematic Universe
I like: the hero narratives, the balance of conquering both internal and external demons, and the way the ethical questions to be grappled with shift according to the technology that's forcing the issues. I like it when different team members' skills complement each other. I like Big Damn Hero moments and I like worldbuilding that colours in what it means to have serums and AIs and self-assembling armor and Extremis. I like the way that who is using the technology (or is physically enhanced by it) is just as important as what the technology is. I haven't seen Dark World or Hulk movies. Fave characters include Maya, JARVIS, Gamora, Nebula, Starlord, Tony, Steve, Sam, Wanda. Less keen on Vision.
Requesting with: Dollhouse, Person of Interest, Black Jewels

The Middleman (TV)
I loved the zany humor of the show and pretty much every one of the characters. I loved that they had to deal with negotiating relationships as well as dealing with the absurd comic-book problem of the week. I would love to see the Middleman cast inserting antics and improbabilities into the lives of other canons' characters, or to see them figuring out other canons' weirdnesses. Alternate universes & dimensions and supervillains and aliens welcome.
Requesting with: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, The Good Place

Person of Interest
I like this canon's exploration of applied knowledge as power; I like that disparities of information explicitly lead to enormous power imbalances. I also have an uncomplicated love for the idea that the people with the information are trying to make the world a better place. I love Finch and Reese and their relationship (ship is welcome), I like the Machine and Grace and Zoe Morgan and Control and Fusco, and although I'd prefer she wasn't the only PoI character to show up if you're using PoI characters, I like Shaw. I like the sense of technology inexorably changing society, of things that can't be put back in the box once they've been taken out.
Requesting with: Harry Potter, Madoka, Tomorrowland

Pokémon - All Media Types
I love both the utopian image of humans and intelligent-or-sentient animals working together, and the darker and weirder corners of the Pokémon world. I especially love the exciting sense of discoveries to be made and worlds to be explored that has always been a cornerstone of the canon for me. I'm familiar with the anime through Johto, the main game series through Ruby & Sapphire, and Pokémon Go, but if you want to refer to characters and Pokémon from other parts of canon, go ahead - please just include notes for me at the start or end of the work. I like Gold and Silver, and for a handful of Pokémon I particularly like: Golem, Raichu, Cubone, Eevee, Unown, Gastly, Umbreon, Oddish, Bulbasaur, Mareep, Rhyhorn, Dragonair...
Requested with: Dragonriders of Pern, Kingsman

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
This movie broke my heart when I saw it and I've liked it more and more since. I loved its compromises and grey areas and that people could be flawed and do good things. I loved the idea of building from what's broken, and the way it populated the Star Wars universe with little-h and little-r heroes and rebels rather than Heroes and Rebels. I particularly liked Jyn, Cassian, Chirrut, and Baze; Galen and Lyra are also interesting. Adventures, sacrifice, and one culture clashing with another all welcome.
Requesting with: The Goblin Emperor.

Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
I love these messy, fierce, imperfect characters against their background of ritual and archetype. I love the straight-faced weirdness of witches and heart-swords and how that only sets the stage for very petty, very eternal conflicts. Each time I watch the show I have a new favourite character. I don't hate any of them. I'd love to see these characters in any other canons (perhaps pre- or post-Ohtori?), and I'd love to see other characters and canons integrated into Ohtori. More magical realism would be a bonus.
Requesting with: Madoka, Labyrinth, Sucker Punch, fairy tales

Sucker Punch (2011)
I love the worldhopping and the narrative play regarding whose story this is. I loved the thread of anger running through it. I enjoyed the sacrifices, though I'd be happy (-ier?) if everyone made it out alive, and the different fields of battle. I loved all the "girls", though particularly Baby Doll, and Sweet Pea and Rocket and their relationship.
Requesting with: Madoka, Utena, Labyrinth, fairy tales

Tomorrowland (2015)
I enjoyed Casey's courage and positivity, Frank being a jerk with a hidden heart, the world layered within a world, the sense of a future being something you could reach out and touch, and Frank and Athena's complicated relationship. I liked that hope vs despair vs pragmatism was a key theme. Any of Frank, Athena, Casey, or David would be cool to see, as would the tachyon machine appearing in any other canon. I'd love to know more about the culture of the Tomorrowland bubble-world, or have general ideas about the Tomorrowland world-within-a-world structure incorporated into other canons. Frank and Athena are welcome as a ship or platonically.
Requesting with: Harry Potter, Person of Interest, Madoka. This entry is also posted at https://morbane.dreamwidth.org/37216.html. There are comments. Please comment either here or there.

Recent Gifts

morbane — Sun, 08 Jan 2017 08:21:04 GMT

I have been remiss in posting about recent fanfiction gifts. I received a superlatively generous range, in quantity and quality both, across Crossovering, Coronation Ceremony, and Yuletide.

Fandoms: Pokémon Go, Jorinde and Joringel (Fairy Tale), The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison, Beauty and the Beast (Fairy Tale), Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Labyrinth (1986).

Yuletide, a large exchange for "rare" fandoms (under a certain threshold of fic quantity), has been a bright point in the last quarter of my last seven years. I received:

Fraxinella (3481 words) by ForsythiaRising
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Jorinde and Joringel (Fairy Tale), Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Der Wacholderbaum | The Juniper Tree (Fairy Tale)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jorinde/Joringel
Characters: Jorinde, Joringel, sorceress - Character
Additional Tags: Fairy Tale Retellings, I would not say the violence is graphic but it is definitely there, honestly this is darker than planned, The Juniper Tree is barely referenced for like 20 seconds, really obscure fairy tales for 600, Flowers, Fire, do not read if fire freaks you out
Summary: The sorceress keeps her magic on the hearth, under a big, iron cauldron where its red glow can mix in with the always-dying embers.
---
Days of a nightingale & dreams of her lover

Jorinde and Joringel is a story that is both tidy and weird, satisfying and confusing. A maiden is captured by a sorceress and her lover must free her. ForsythiaRising chose to blur the lines between maiden, mother, and crone; the initial sorceress is not sympathetic, yet she is relatable. There are utterly gorgeous turns of phrase in this story, especially if you like gardens.

Candy (6344 words) by winter hill
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Pokemon GO
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Blanche & Candela & Spark (Pokemon), Spark & Eevee
Characters: Blanche (Pokemon), Candela (Pokemon), Spark (Pokemon), Professor Willow (Pokemon), Eievui | Eevee, Eeveelutions
Additional Tags:
Pokemon candy, Journey, Comfort, buddy pokemon, Yuletide Treat
Summary: When Eevee is transferred to the Professor, she is certain that she’s about to be chopped up for candy. Instead, she might just have found her forever home.

Pokémon Go, the mobile platform game launched in July 2016, was everything I dreamed of - except for the game mechanic that implied players traded sentient creatures for parts. Directly. I was really not okay with that. winterhill wrote me a charming story, dense with hope and trust, that made it all okay and, as per my request, focused on the vast scope of the Pokémon world. winterhill was not even signed up to Yuletide, so I feel especially honoured to have been the benefactor of their treating efforts.

Like a House on Fire (4022 words) by Masu_Trout
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Pokemon GO
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Blanche & Candela & Spark (Pokemon), Candela & Dr. Willow | Professor Willow
Characters: Candela (Pokemon), Blanche (Pokemon), Spark (Pokemon), Professor Willow (Pokemon), Hitokage | Charmander
Additional Tags: Government Experimentation, Pokémon in the Real World
Summary: Apparently, pokémon are real. Candela knows this because one of them just burned her house down.

I also asked for a story about Pokémon Go suddenly colliding with the real world, and Masu_Trout delivered with a great action-adventure story about Candela - student-turned-Pokémon trainer. This is a funny, fast-paced, clever work. Masu_Trout was also not signed up to Yuletide and treated only. Again, I'm honoured.

Crossovering is an exchange I have taken part with great enthusiasm in since it started; this most recent round was its 3rd year. I received:

Beauty and the Incubator (4517 words) by VampirePaladin
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Beauty and the Beast - All Media Types
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Incubator Character
Characters: Original Female Character(s), Original Incubator Character
Additional Tags: Fairy Tale Elements, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Alien/Human Relationships, Pre-Canon
Summary: How Beauty and the Beast may have happened in the Madoka Magica world.

I watched Madoka over the last year and it stunned me. Wishes and all their consequences. Hope and heart and courage and darkness. This was a lovely story - it used a fairy tale structure very cleverly to offer up a happy ending that builds slowly and surely. I was a pinch hit in this exchange and my friend VampirePaladin took on my assignment very late - thank you. ♥

the stars move for no one (1066 words) by templemarker
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Labyrinth (1986), Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Jadis | The White Witch, Jareth (Labyrinth)

I also asked for Narnia & the Labyrinth, and this extrapolates from the breathtaking ruin of Charn to create the Labyrinth out of someone who didn't quite die. I am particularly happy that my writer zeroed in on Jadis & Charn because I find that very evocative. And I really like this origin for Jareth that is half-humble, half archetype.

(Nor was this the only story in the collection that crossed over Narnia and Labyrinth.)

Coronation Ceremony was an exchange run by extrapenguin for the fantasy novel The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison. ExtraPenguin experimented with matching options and I had a blast with their results. I received:

Appropriation Bills, Compulsory Purchases, and Hope (1663 words) by bigsunglasses
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Csethiro Ceredin/Maia Drazhar
Characters: Maia Drazhar, Csethiro Ceredin
Additional Tags: The Wisdom Bridge, Worldbuilding, Post-Canon
Summary: Bridging the Istandaärtha was not merely a marvel of engineering and a feat of politics. It was a financial nightmare.

My author graciously combined two requests I made separately - fic involving the Wisdom Bridge, and fic involving Maia and Csethiro supporting each other. Maia's doubts are so poignant and plausible and I love, love, love seeing the details of bureaucracy in my fantasy. Also, a few weeks later at work I had to proofread an appropriations bill and having this fic in mind made me smile a lot while doing so.

Csoru character design (0 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Csoru Drazharan
Additional Tags: Fanart, Digital Art, character design
Summary: Color design sheet--full figure and a couple of faces.

Csoru is not remotely a protagonist in The Goblin Emperor, but she is definitely a character, and the artist captured her emotional range gloriously - including some really wonderful, lush costume designs. Again, a treat from someone who wasn't signed up. Thank you!

Letters and Flight (640 words) by shadow_lover
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Csoru Drazharan, Csethiro Ceredin (Off-Screen), Varenechibel IV (Off-Screen), Maia Drazhar (Off-Screen)
Additional Tags: Character Study, Letters, Pre-Canon
Summary: She likes to imagine her words flying like birds of prey through the heart of the Untheileneise Court.

And here was another really satisfying angle on Csoru, making her sympathetic if not praiseworthy and showing how she finds satisfactions - sometimes petty, sometimes small, and sometimes all that it is possible for a person in her situation to reach for. My friend shadow_lover was quietly writing this for me at the same time as we were discussing our actual assignments for the exchange. Sneaky and delightful.

♥ This entry is also posted at https://morbane.dreamwidth.org/34858.html. There are comments. Please comment either here or there.

Cross My Heart: Crossovering 2016

morbane — Sat, 16 Jul 2016 11:53:31 GMT

This letter is for the crossovering annual fanfiction challenge. Sign-ups are open through the 17th of July.

This letter has three parts. Part I gives general likes and dislikes, Part II gives notes on individual fandoms, and Part III gives possible prompts for the crossovers I've requested.

General Likes and Dislikes

DNWs
Hand injuries; amnesia; addiction and substance abuse.

General likes
Worldbuilding, original characters, outsider viewpoints, magical realism. Trains, cities, dramatic weather. Wishes and their consequences. Mentors and their protegé(e)s. Descriptions of skills and technical or practical processes, or things that are very specific to a location and time. Complicated and simple relationships (platonic, romantic, antagonistic, any combination...) Dark consequences of simple things. Uplifting and hopeful messages. Cool gadgets and enthusiasm for scientific innovation. Beautiful animals or beautiful landscapes or beautiful homes. Wingfic. Vivid colours and textures. Multiple identities and identity porn (especially the kind where person A has secret reasons for protecting or helping person B, but to person B, A is an ordinary stranger). For porn specifically: awkward sex, praise kink, telepathy, xeno, dub-con, touch starvation. For porn or romance, feel free to write any combination of genders.

I love fusions, crossovers, and stories that take elements from two different canons to create a universe that isn't really either.

Fandoms

I've listed some favourite characters, and for some canons, I've also listed characters I'm less keen on. These are suggestions only; I trust you if you want explore other characters or otherwise work orthogonally to my prompts.

Black Jewels
I like: the extremes of loyalty and magical power; the found families; the dances of etiquette - and the potential consequences of a mis-step; the places that less-powerful individuals carve out for themselves in a society that we see through the lens of the most dangerous and dramatic people; the choices and their costs. I like thinking about the magic and class system and Realms. I like thinking about the Terreilleans settling in Kaeleer during the events of Heir & Queen, caught in the power struggle between Dorothea and Jaenelle. I like thinking about the Landens. Sparkly magic animals don't hurt either.

My favourite characters are Wilhelmina, Karla, and Sylvia, though I sometimes prefer to disregard the short story that focuses on Sylvia and her sons (I just want to pretend that didn't happen to them) - so feel free to also disregard it, if you want. There aren't any characters I would specifically like you to avoid. Generally, I like the canon ships, though I'm also fond of Daemon/Lucivar, Wilhelmina/OC, and Karla/OFC.

Chronicles of Narnia
I like: the adventure, the seriousness with which Lewis treats the elements of his rather outlandish world; the balance of conquering both internal and external demons; the literary references and in-jokes; the scope of the world and the way it doesn't always seem fit together neatly. (The islands that Caspian visits in The Dawn Treader seem to be out of a different world to the wastes across which Jill and Eustace and Puddleglum travel in The Silver Chair, and then there's the Telmarines...) I love the asides about how adventures don't seem as jolly when you're cold and tired and frightened for your life, and, in contrast, the celebrations of good company and shelter and food. I like the combination of certainty and wonder.

I'm enthralled by Jadis, and other witches like the Lady of the Green Kirtle. I'm interested in parts of Narnian history that are hinted at but not shown. I love Tirian and Jewel and Reepicheep, and all the children who visited Narnia. I have not seen any of the recent movies, only some of the early BBC ones, so would prefer book!verse, where possible, for characterisation and relationships. I would prefer not to get a story that aims to solve the Problem of Susan - her fate at the end of the canon and how you feel about it can be part of your story, but I'd prefer that it not be the largest part.

Dragonriders of Pern
One of my oldest, die-hard I-don’t-care-about-its-quality-or-how-it’s-aged fannish obsessions. I read Anne McCaffrey all through my adolescence. I’d love equally a fusion that borrows the tropes and culture, or a story that explores one of the Pernese characters. I haven’t read past All the Weyrs of Pern; I don’t mind references to events past that, or earlier events written by Todd, but you may need to spell out explicitly what happened in order for me to follow along. My favourite books are Moreta’s Ride and Red Star Rising (alternately published as Dragonseye), and my favourite characters come from those books, but I also love Mirrim and Brekke and Kylara; Menolly and Robinton and Piemur; Mnementh. I’m less fond of Jaxom. I admit I really love Impression scenes and the dragon flights and the potential for drama they offer.

Fairy Tales
I love fairy tale fanfic so much that I help my friend Rosencrantz run an exchange for it! :D You can see my past requests for the exchange on this page and this page. I grew up on the Andrew Lang collections (now on Project Gutenberg). So basically I am very enthusiastic and I hope you feel free to go in many different creative directions. Some of my favourite fairy tales, especially if you’re considering fusions, are East of the Sun, West of the Moon, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, and Beauty and the Beast. Although, equally, take your favourite fairy tale and run with it. I like the idea of fairy tales retold in other genres, or characters from another canon following a fairy-tale plot, or of other canons' worlds' rules becoming more fairy-tale-like.

I am fascinated by the way moral rules almost seem to supersede the laws of physics. I enjoy kindness being rewarded and cruelty punished. I enjoy the laws of three and animal transformations and other tropes that play across multiple tales. I enjoy the pantheon of witches and ogres, wolves and princesses, seamstresses and sailors.

Greek and Roman Mythology
I like the sense of the gods' human or super-human emotions juxtaposed with their powers; in every way, they are larger than life. As with fairy tales, I like the sense of a different logic to the world. In contrast to fairy tales, I like exploring the sense of inherent unfairness I get from many mythological tales: disproportionate punishments and rages, senseless fates; the great imbalance between gods and men. I love the idea of nymphs and dryads and nereids, and other elemental figures.

Some figures and stories that have particularly captured my imagination: Cupid and Psyche; Prometheus; Pandora; Orpheus and Eurydice; Apollo and Artemis; Demeter, Persephone, and Hades; and Amalthea, Atalanta, Hestia, Mercury, Rhea, and Chrysaor, though I don't really know much about those last six. (If treating with Persephone and Hades, I'm less keen on versions in which Hades seized Persephone as a fully-consensual pre-arranged plan, or where she plotted it to get away from Demeter.) Sorry about the mix of Roman and Greek names! Please use which names feel right for you and the sources you are using.

Harry Potter
I love the incredibly inventive invented world. I love how weird the magic could be, and how funny, too. I loved Harry as a Chosen One and I loved him struggling with being special, too. Wizard society and world building is particularly fascinating to me. I like the explorations of power and responsibility.

I am particularly fond of Luna and Ginny and Cedric and McGonagall and Dumbledore (especially a complicated Dumbledore). I love the intricacies of wands and Houses and the (rather arbitrary) branches of magic. (I consider myself to be aligned somewhere between Slytherin and Hufflepuff.) I'd like a story about pretty much anyone, and especially about worldbuilding. Er, I should probably mention I have no clue about Pottermore and similar post-book canon; feel free to disregard, or, if using Pottermore canon, please try to design your story to stand alone without that knowledge, or leave me some notes.

Kingsman
I like the, er, uncomplicated morality (though subverting it is also fine!) and the silly, somewhat optimistic take on dangerous missions and a world at stake. I like the sense of tribute to wacky spy film gadgets and other tropes. There's no character I'd particularly like you to avoid (except perhaps the real-life heads of state mentioned in the film); my favourites are Eggsy, Harry, Merlin, and Roxy, and I'm particularly fond of Eggsy/Harry and Merlin/Roxy/Eggsy, or platonic Roxy & Eggsy. Other ships are fine, though. Like most of fandom, I'm pretty happy to hand-wave protagonist deaths. I'm mostly unspoiled for the upcoming movie.

I particularly love the mentor-mentee bonds, whether they're platonic or not. This canon is full of characters who show off for each other, or perform acts of loyalty for each other, or are quietly (or not so) pleased when they are respected or admired by the others, and I love that.

Labyrinth
I like the fantastical world, the power of story, and the power of wish and will. I like the exploration of the way expectations shape reality, and I love the range of moods, from frightening to absurd. I love Sarah's friendship with Hogget and Sir Didymus and others, and also her much more complicated relationship with Jareth. I love that she is aware of her own power. I love Jareth’s own changeling, reflective nature. I like to think that we never see all of him. I definitely ship Sarah/Jareth (though, optional!). I'd also love to know more about Jareth's world - and how Sarah's book came to be. A future Toby interests me too.

Marvel Cinematic Universe
I like: the hero narratives, the balance of conquering both internal and external demons, and the way the ethical questions to be grappled with shift according to the technology that's forcing the issues. I like it when different team members' skills complement each other. I like Big Damn Hero moments and I like worldbuilding that colours in what it means to have serums and AIs and self-assembling armor and Extremis. I like the way that who is using the technology (or is physically enhanced by it) is just as important as what the technology is.

I haven't seen Thor: The Dark World or any Hulk movies. My favourite movies are Iron Man 1 & 3, though I'm also fond of Captain America: The First Avenger and Ant-Man. I have also seen season 1 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I'm especially fond of Tony, Steve, Sam, Natasha, Pepper, Maya, Wanda, and JARVIS; I'm less keen on Vision, so would prefer he wasn't the sole focus. Canon ships are welcome; so are your favourite ships, though I'd appreciate some in-story development for any non-canon ship, rather than the characters just being a couple with little/no explanation.

Also, I love Guardians of the Galaxy, so although I imagine most people offering MCU are thinking of Earth or Asgardian settings, if you have an idea involving the Guardians, I would love that too.

Person of Interest
I like this canon's exploration of applied knowledge as power; I like how it explores the way that disparities of information lead to enormous power imbalances. I also have an uncomplicated love for the idea that the people with the information are trying to make the world a better place. I love both Finch and Reese's reclusive-genius and man-of-action-with-angsty-past archetypes, and I love the broader aspects of their respective characters. And I love that put together they're basically Batman. I love the Machine and how she gradually emerges as a character. I'm also fond of Shaw and Fusco and Zoe Morgan, and am curious about Control.

I have complicated feelings about Root; if you're tossing up between several different story ideas, maybe please choose one that isn't primarily about Root or about Root/Shaw. I guess I feel that Root was still on a path to redemption, rather than fully redeemed, by the end of the story. (Obviously the Machine has a more positive view of Root than I do. OK if your story reflects that!) Although I happily ship Finch/Reese, I'm fine with Finch/Grace, or Grace having a large part to play in general. My other feelings about ships are pretty neutral.

Pokémon
I love the sense of an enormous world waiting to be explored, filled with wondrous creatures that could be your friends! I love the combination of adventure and dangerou and wonder with generally low ratings for violence and darkness - though I'm very happy to consume fanworks that subvert and darken the world, too. I love ordinary people meeting legendaries and going on amazing quests; I love loyalty and hard work between trainers and their Pokémon; I love just how weird some of the Pokémon are. I love stories about training but I also love stories about ordinary people just living side-by-side with Pokémon.

I'm only familiar with the games through Ruby, and the anime through Johto; totally fine if you want to refer to further canon (one exception: please don't base a story on Pokémon Go concepts or on another canon's characters playing Pokémon Go), but you may want to consider leaving me some helpful links in your author's notes. If you have a favourite game or anime character, or favourite Pokémon, that I'm not familiar with, go ahead and use them and show me what you love about them. I love Mewtwo and the Unown/Annon, and Silver and Gold as characters. I love all kinds of AUs as well as explorations of the Pokémon world.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica
I only watched this last year, but fell immediately in love. It's just such a wonderful balance of dark and light. I love Madoka's courage and humility; I love Homura's loyalty (obsession) and desperation; I love Kyubey's alien logic and that in its own way it is trying to save the universe. I adore the art, especially of the witch labyrinths. I love the magical girl powers and the ordinary parts of the world, and especially the relationship between Madoka and her mother. I really love everyone. I particularly love the exploration of the dangers of sacrificing yourself to save others, and the conversation Madoka and Junko have about mistakes.

I have seen and enjoyed Rebellion; to me it feels like a sort of optional theory about what happens or could happen after the anime. It’s fine with me if you want to either use it or reject it.

Shoujo Kakumei Utena
I love the dance of is-this-symbol-or-is-this-actual, and how while you are distracted with figuring this out, SKU will stab you in your feelings. On both my first and second viewing, I was exasperated with Utena’s stubborn naivety and her inclination to simplify from her observations, and yet I love her very much, and have a similar love for everyone in the cast: they are not untarnished heroes - some are not heroes at all - yet each in their way illustrates the redemptive power of striving towards something.

I love the series’ crushing scorn for princes on white horses rescuing damsels; I love the series’ compassion for those who believe in princes and princesses even while it breaks down those ideas. Man, this isn’t very helpful. Sorry, I left this fandom for last because it’s hardest. I love people being complicit in their own deception; I love the illustrations of the Karpman Drama Triangle, and how no one’s nobility is uncomplicated. I love everyone, from Saionji to Kozue and Kanae to Mikage. I particularly love Kozue and Nanami; but pick your favourite and write about them. Each of these characters has such compelling arcs that I feel they’d thrive very well transplanted to a new setting; equally, Ohtori is a good place to plop other characters down in and see how they’d fare. I like canon ships and I like crack!ships - you can sell me on any pairing.

Tomorrowland
The struggle between optimism and pessimism; the sense of fierce nostalgia for a belief in the future: these things really grabbed me about this movie. I love Frank and David snarking back and forth; I love Casey's resourcefulness and optimism; I found Athena compelling and also rather alien. Robots breaking through their programming to be better than their programming is a fun trope, but even more when it seems that humans are doing the opposite - conditioning themselves into a self-closing loop.

I like thinking about the future that Casey is trying to create; I also like thinking about Athena and Frank's (incredibly complex) past relationship (yes I ship them but that's messy and super-optional), and I like thinking about how David came to the conclusions he did. I like imagining how it could have gone differently, and of course how David and the people of Tomorrowland have interacted with other parts of the world we know.

Requests

Request One: Black Jewels - Anne Bishop, Person of Interest (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe

Black Jewels and Person of Interest
-Finch and Reese in Terreille, outcast males working to subvert Dorothea's message
-Jewel powers and etiquette in New York
-The Machine as a dreamed-for Queen

Person of Interest and MCU
-JARVIS and the Machine in contact; perhaps together opposing Samaritan and/or Arnim Zola's algorithm; OR the Machine helping JARVIS survive Ultron
-Exploration of Project Insight in a PoI world (imagine Finch's reservations!)
-The Battle of New York in a PoI world
-Reese (or an other PoI character) has more than human powers
-Finch and Reese on a galactic base, interacting with the Guardians
-Control in a world with both Northern Lights and Project Insight, dealing with either Ross or Pierce

Black Jewels and MCU
-Pepper (as Queen) and Tony (as a brilliant male serving her) begin with a very different relationship
-Landens using technology against Craft
-Wanda is a Queen born to a land that doesn't understand her
-Queens created or otherwise artificial
-A Jewelled witch or Warlord joins up with the Avengers in the ordinary world
-Gamora or Nebula or both is a Black Widow or Queen

Request Two - Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Labyrinth (1986)
Utena and Narnia
-Some of Ohtori's students are transported to Narnia (as serious or cracky as you like) (bonus for brother-sister pairs?)
-As Caspian went on a quest with the Dawn Treader, some other Narnian adventurer goes on a quest for the Castle Where Eternity Dwells (or for other adventurers who have been lost to its spell)
-The Pevensies and Eustace and Jill often return to school after a time in Narnia - maybe the school could be oddly Ohtori-like?

Narnia and Labyrinth
-Jareth's Labyrinth as a strange corner of Narnia, with overlap between the people and creatures who dwell there
-Sir Didymus and Reepicheep
-Jareth vs. the White Witch
-Sarah talks with someone who has been to Narnia

Labyrinth and Utena
-Quests for princesses or princes that aren't quite what they seem
-One person rescuing another
-Jareth as a past or future prince; Anthy as Sarah's future
-Anthy meeting Chu-Chu in the Labyrinth
-Anthy passing through the Labyrinth on her quest to find Utena

Request Three - Greek and Roman Mythology, Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Fairy Tales & Classical Mythology
-A myth retold in fairy-tale style or vice versa
-A witch or fairy godmother is revealed to be a goddess (and why?)
-Encounters between characters from fairy tales & characters from myths who undergo similar transformations
-Friendship or romance between humans or other human-shaped characters and characters in temporary animal form

Fairy Tales & Pokémon
-Animal transformation = Pokémon transformation
-Fairy magic in the Pokémon world
-Pokémon myths and legends
-Pokémon as animal antagonists/companions in fairy tales, or as objects of a fairy tale quest (i.e., the magical bird, the magical horse)

Classical Mythology & Pokémon
-Animal transformation = Pokémon transformation
-Pokémon myths and legends
-Pokémon as elemental spirits or gods, or the servants of gods
-Stories about Legendary Pokémon that draw on Greek and Roman myths

Classical Mythology & Madoka
-A human cast down by the gods takes a contract with Kyubey
-The gods have opinions on Kyubey's contracts
-The story of Prometheus or Pandora can be explained by contracts
-Mado-kami interacts with older gods
-A retelling of Hades & Persephone with Homura & Madoka

Fairy Tales & Madoka
-Different kinds of girls & magic
-A fairy tale witch is a PMMM witch (especially if they were once a princess in a previous fairy tale)
-People stolen away to fairy realms (Twelve Dancing Princesses, Tam Lin) are actually people trapped in a witch labyrinth

Madoka & Pokémon
-The girls as Pokémon trainers (either with no magical contracts, or perhaps with magical contracts that Pokémon are more sensitive to than humans)
-Kyubey as a Legendary Pokémon
-Your favourite Pokémon trainer character makes a contract

Request Four - Black Jewels - Anne Bishop, Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015), Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey

Black Jewels & Pokémon
-Pokémon as Kindred
-Jewels as Leaf Stones, Thunder Stones etc - causing transformations in both Blood and Pokémon
-Unexplored Realms; Realms where people under a certain power level shouldn't go
-Cassidy and Gray attempting to recreate harmony between people and Pokémon in their Territory; Cassidy as leader of a Sceltie (or Sceltie-equivalent) gym?
-In the Pokémon world, only the Blood can train Pokémon (...except?)
-Legendaries are like Queens that humans or other Pokémon are drawn to serve

Black Jewels & Kingsman
-Secret missions in Terreille; the Kingsman characters work to uphold the Old Ways; Kingsman characters as Blood
-Landens vs. Blood
-Gazelle vs Surreal?
-Parallels between Saetan & Andulvar & Prothvar & Mephis, and the older generation of Kingsman characters

Black Jewels & Pern
-One set of human(oid)s devolved from dragons; one set of dragons designed by humans...
-Mix and match the etiquette and protocols
-Pern as a small, remote territory in the Realms where Landen and (thought-extinct) dragons cooperate
-Karla or Jaenelle as a queen rider; Lessa or Moreta as a Jewelled Queen
-Moreta torn between castes of Healer and Queen

Kingsman & Pern
-The Kingsman characters as a secret group within a Weyr, OR a secret Holds-based group designed to get an advantage over the Weyrs
-Fire lizards in the modern/Kingsman world
-Thread falls on Earth
-Reinterpret the Harper Hold in the modern/Kingsman world?

Kingsman & Pokémon
-Kingsman vs. Team Rocket
-Kingsman characters as Pokémon trainers (Eggsy as Gym junior hopeful? Pokémon training is only for the elite?)
-Pokémon as a new development (genetic engineering? manifestation of spirits?) in our world
-Your favourite human character from Pokémon as a new Kingsman recruit

Pern & Pokémon
-Pern as a small, remote territory in the Pokémon world where dragon Pokémon are particularly cherished
-Pokémon created to fight Thread
-Pokémon created on a new world during human galactic expansion; the inhabitants of the two worlds visit each other
-Pokémon training is about the bond between one human and one Pokémon
-A Pernese character (Menolly?) is a Pokémon trainer; a Pokémon trainer is a dragon rider
-Weyrleaders as Gym Leaders

Request Five - Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Tomorrowland (2015), Person of Interest (TV), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling

Madoka & Tomorrowland
-Different explorations of trying to save the world/the future
-David perhaps under Kyubey's influence?
-Casey comes up with her own way of preventing witches
-Tomorrowland is actually Madoka's world, and when Casey (or Homura) goes there from our world, she discovers a catch
-Tomorrowland as a witch's labyrinth - or, from the perspective of Tomorrowland, Earth is the witch's labyrinth
-Athena as an experiment made by Kyubey

Madoka & Person of Interest
-The Machine tries to figure out magical girls (there is a number who is a magical girl, or who is saved by a magical girl?)
-Different ways of trying to save people or save the future
-Kyubey is behind Samaritan - OR the Machine
-The Machine is created by someone's wish
-Shaw/Root parallels Madoka/Homura in some way (yes this is an exception to my fandom notes for PoI)
-Thinking of Root & Reese - perhaps the Machine is able to incorporate/upload soul gems?

Madoka & Harry Potter
-People attempting to cheat death or gain power they shouldn't have
-Prophesies and averting them
-A Squib trying to attend Hogwarts
-Luna or Hermione or Ginny as a magical girl (Chamber of Secrets: witch's labyrinth?)

Harry Potter & Person of Interest
-The Machine tries to figure out wizards (they get a wizard or witch's number?)
-One of the PoI characters is a wizard in exile from the wizarding world
-The Machine is a magical creation; perhaps the agglomeration of all prophesies at the Department of Mysteries, or, the Department of Mysteries gains sentience?
-Finch and Reese attempt to protect wizards with muggle heritage during a period of tension in the wizarding world

Harry Potter & Tomorrowland
-Some people get a letter by owl, some people get a pin...
-Tomorrowland as a wizarding enclave cut off from humanity
-Intersections between people excited about technology & people excited about magic
-Prophesies and averting them

Person of Interest and Tomorrowland
-The Machine and the tachyon machine
-Team Machine tries to find Tomorrowland
-The Machine attempts to find people like Casey who can fix the future
-the tachyon machine identifies potential assets, rather than young people, who might be able to save the world
-Finch was thrown out of Tomorrowland

In conclusion: if there's something in my prompts you can use, fantastic; if not, go your own way and I look forward to reading something that's a complete surprise. I hope you have fun. This entry is also posted at https://morbane.dreamwidth.org/32396.html. There are comments. Please comment either here or there.

Dear DJ

morbane — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 04:19:30 GMT

This letter relates to the jukebox_fest fandom exchange. Sign-ups close at the end of Wednesday, EDT. If you're curious about it, please send me a message! Or just go ahead and read the rules and sign up.

Thank you for reading, would-be creator or otherwise curious person.

GENERAL COMMENTS
Perhaps it goes without saying in this exchange, but I love original characters, worldbuilding, and a vast variety of settings. I love song interpretations that take metaphors and concretize as many as possible, playing them completely straight, but I also love interpretations that pick and choose what will be imagery and what will be reality. Either way, whatever your brain comes up with will be different than what mine does, and I look forward to it. Don't feel you have to stick to the genders that are given/implied by the singers' genders or the pronouns in the lyrics.

Likes - I love stories about loyalty and about competence - where competence includes people who make mistakes and then learn from them, however hard the lesson. I love stories that are enriched with little details about a setting and time period - whether that setting or time period is mundane or fantastical. You can't go wrong either in inventing a huge universe or in telling me a story that is set on a single, real street that has no claim to fame whatsoever.

I enjoy reading about functional and respectful romantic or platonic relationships, but I also enjoy really screwed-up relationships, and dubcon and noncon. Platonic mentor & student relationships are a particular bonus. If porn is involved, I particularly like touch starvation, xeno, telepathy, awkward sex, non-con, or dub-con (not all at once). Any gender or number combination is OK for either romance or sex.

I particularly like stories about characters' relationships shifting - about those relationships changing due to changing loyalties, or simply due to time and life experience. Or in characters whose relationships to each other are determined from moment to moment by roles they are otherwise required to play. I'm just as interested in break-ups as get-togethers.

I like morally ambiguous characters - pretty much every shade of gray except Absolute Cartoon Villain, and even those are fun in works where the overall tone is appropriately cartoonish. I like stories that appear very differently when seen through different characters' eyes.

I love dragons, trains, dark fairies, cities, dramatic weather, unexpected meetings. I love descriptions of skills. I like humour and silly puns and cracktastic scenarios.

Regarding art - I really love highly stylised art - geometric patterns, decorative patterns, fancy borders and framings. I like skylines and a sense of distance. I love costume details, or character studies done through faces or poses. However, I don't consider myself particularly visually literate / good at figuring out ambiguous images, so if you're deciding between something very simple, and something very complicated and ambitious, I think I'd prefer the former if it would ensure I can easily interpret what you have created.

I like jewel tones and earth tones and grays. I am less keen on neons and Lisa Frank rainbow palettes and pastels, unless contrasted with black/grays/muddier tones.

I don't ask for art very often, so I apologise if these aren't very helpful notes, and I hope the individual prompts are more helpful.

Regarding podfic - I have listened to very little podfic; I hope you will consider this an invitation to play to your strengths and create something you like. As with art, however, I hope the individual prompts are more helpful.

Dislikes/DNWs - Please don't make addiction or substance abuse a key theme. Please don't give me graphic art or graphic descriptions of harm to hands. Please don't use memory loss as a fun trope - I am OK with it if it's serious, but I don't enjoy, say, amnesia used lightheartedly to fuel the plot in a romantic story.

SPECIFIC PROMPTS
All Moments Leading to This - Lucid 3 (Song)
Fanfic, Podfic
YouTube, lyrics
'Cause I'm going home to take my oath on things I know...

I love this song for its balance between simplicity and significance. There are things at stake: oaths and safety and friendship, and whatever the "this" of the title is; but most of the lyrics are more poignant than portentous. This could be a song about a fantasy journey, a hero setting out on a quest or attempting redemption - and it could just as easily be about anyone in a modern or historical setting whose life seems to be on the cusp of changing. And either way, the things the character seems to draw their strength from are very, essentially, powerful things - the meaning of home; the sky and ocean and earth and seasons; their friends.

Please, tell me why this character is going home; tell me about their 'body of friends'; tell me about the city that they are leaving. Overall, the sense I get that even if it's an epic quest, "This" isn't exactly about facing up to some human corruption or regaining self-worth or connecting with family that the character never properly got to know - the question isn't what or whether so much as who the person (already) is, and how they hold on to that sense of self.

I am interested in podfic for this song because I feel as though the sense of personal quest / internal, subtle stakes would lend itself very well to vocal nuance. I would love to hear what further performance could bring to the themes in this song.

Beautiful Stranger - Madonna (Song)
Fanfic
YouTube, lyrics
To love you is to be part of you

There are so many interesting moods in this song - adoration, heartbreak, caution, a sense of the sublime. Why is the Stranger dangerous/a devil? I am particularly captivated by the line 'To love you is to be part of you' - that suggests something beyond a whirlwind romance. But a whirlwind romance is good too. Are there spies? Is there a cult? Is reincarnation, and a relationship in a past life, the reason the Stranger appears to be both familiar and unknown?

I'd be particularly interested in a version of this whereby the Stranger appears to pose a danger to the Narrator for reasons, but is secretly in love with them/ working to protect them/ has their best interests at heart - this is a kind of identity porn I love. Or a poly story in which the Narrator is just one of many people who has fallen in love with the Stranger and somehow this works out okay. But you definitely don't have to write this story with a happy ending, however you choose to interpret the song. Please don't feel bound by these ideas.

Please don't make the Narrator extremely stupid or self-destructive, as per the lines 'If I'm smart then I'll run away/ But I'm not so I guess I'll stay.' I would prefer that sentiment is downplayed/ de-emphasised.

Disguised As Someone Else - Joe Pug (Song)
Fanfic
YouTube, lyrics
I wish that I could come to you disguised as someone else.

A complicated/painful relationship and identity shenanigans? Sold. Hearing this song and reading its lyrics, I almost want to argue with it; I hope you find it similarly inspiring of ideas. The narrator's sentiment is pretty relatable, but wow, the issues involved.

I'd be interested in a scenario in which the narrator goes some way towards getting their wish - dark, awkward weirdness would be a bonus - or just imagines in more specificity what would best bring them closure - but I'm also really interested in what has brought the narrator and the person they're addressing to this point. What are their memories of the relationship that's just crashed and burned? What was it like when it was good?

The narrator obviously still cares deeply - but about their pride and sense of self (no one likes to be the bad guy) or about their once-significant-other? (Okay, maybe I'm biased.)

First We Take Manhattan - Leonard Cohen (Song)
Fanfic, Podfic
YouTube, Lyrics
I told you, I told you, told you, I was one of those

What a compelling song. As with 'All Moments Leading to This', I'm fascinated by the range of stakes here, from the very, very wide-ranging (international? future of the world) to the very personal. The parts about the monkey & the plywood violin, and taking the groceries in, have a feeling almost of bathos - I'm fascinated by what personally shaped the narrator and their goals and beliefs, from from philosophical influences to tiny moments.

Tell me about this person who loved the narrator "as a loser" - do they ever "gain the discipline" to fight for what they believe in, against the narrator? Tell me about the signal in the heavens and the beautiful weapons. Why Manhattan then Berlin?

I'm also interested in the underlying theme about the politicization of bodies (and possibly sexualities as well?) - what happened to the sister, the guiding birthmark, 'I love your body... and your clothes'.

So: what's really at stake? How do the narrator and their allies want to change the system? Do their ends justify the means?

I'm interested in podfic here, as well as fic, because the character of the narrator is so interesting and contradictory. I feel as though we're not getting the full story and I'd love for a performance to play up the ambiguities in the narrator's stance.

I also think this song would suit a response in an unusual format, such as epistolary fic, news/other media snippets, an anachronous narrative - which again might be interesting to treat with in a recorded performance.

Running Through the Garden - Fleetwood Mac (Song)
Fanfic, Fanart
YouTube, Lyrics
Until she herself / Understood her garden / Leaving her heart broken...

Who is telling this story and what is their relationship to the person they're describing? It seems personal and anguished, given that the lyrics alternate between describing a "she" and addressing a "you".

I am interested in what the garden was meant to be, and what it becomes - there are a lot of revelations in this song, so perhaps it is not what it appears or appeared to be. Is it so bad, at the end? Is it true that there is no future, or that the future is frightening and fatal? Where does responsibility lie?

I feel as though this could equally well describe a relationship between friends, between rivals, between a mentor and protegée, a guardian and charge, or lovers; but whatever this relationship is, it has clearly changed (soured? irrevocably? or not?). Or perhaps the narrator (if there is just one) has never spoken to the person they are talking about - only seen the destruction left behind, or seen their tragedy from a distance.

Is the garden fantastical or Edenic? Is the setting far-future, hydroponics, biolab? Is the garden a metaphor?

For art: please give me the garden, with or without human parties. Some possible prompts: poison flowers; flowers that appear differently from different sides or at different times of day; the attempt to "cut down" the garden; the "imprisonment" (cages made of branches, flowers?) (is the person "imprisoned" because they have partly become a plant?). Something more realistic and less fantastical is also fine - I just don't have immediate prompts for it. Feel free to follow a different interpretation of the song!

Whipping Boy - Shearwater (Song)
Fanfic, Fanart
YouTube, Lyrics
I would have paid just about any price.

This is haunting. I don't know how the three verses connect to each other, and that's part of the appeal: feel free to ignore one or two of them in constructing your story or artwork, though of course I'd be interested in a piece that incorporates all of the lyrics too.

Although it's not clear who or what the whipping boy is (someone the narrator is willing to sacrifice to get back a dead child, and see him laugh again?), the idea of three or more disjointed narratives seems appropriate to that concept - one story or situation coloured/informed by another that doesn't really have much to do to it; false equivalencies; connections that are loose and grasped at rather than clear; debts that have to be paid forward rather than back, because it is no longer possible to pay them back in any meaningful way.

Did the narrator attempt to make a bargain, and were they denied? (More than once?) Who or what is the wolf? Is the river real, and what kind of journey did the narrator go on in order to find it?

For art, I'd particularly like a depiction of the boy and wolf - it seems like an interesting and very fragile relationship - or of the incredibly evocative landscape of the third verse. Or, basically, whatever you want to depict that matches your interpretation of what on earth is going on here.

Yellow Flicker Beat - Lorde (Song)
Fanfic
YouTube, Lyrics
They used to shout my name, now they whisper it.

I can't help interpreting this narrator as nonhuman - or at least, as a human with very unique experiences. Even if the imagery is all metaphorical, not real - where does this character derive their frame of references? (Smoother than a storm makes me think of Jupiter; double-time shivers makes me think of lights pulsing on a server array.)

I'm particularly interested in the narrator's relationship to the people who "talk to [them]" and who "used to shout [their] name". Are they afraid, or reverent? What has caused the narrator's anger? What's going on with their time perception - what is going on to cause things to re-start, or speed up and slow down?

I admit: I do have a headcanon for this song, but please ignore it completely if you want: I imagine the narrator as an artificial intelligence, with a powerful physical body as well - created to to protect a city. But something has gone wrong (maybe her creators have betrayed her)... Seriously, though, I'd be happy to have a story about that, but I'd also be happy to have a story about a different interpretation that completely surprises me. This entry is also posted at https://morbane.dreamwidth.org/31033.html. There are comments. Please comment either here or there.

Dear DJ

morbane — Wed, 08 Apr 2015 21:49:35 GMT

[aka: my 'letter' to the person assigned to create a gift for me in the Jukebox exchange, or anyone considering creating a treat for me. If you don't know what I'm talking about, consider investigating Jukebox! It's kind of a gateway drug to original fic if you're in fandom, or a gateway drug to fandom & fanworks if you write original stuff. And it's open to visual & podfic artists this year.]

Generally: I love gen and worldbuilding. I like romances and mentorships and friendships and family relationships and colleague relationships. I also like complex relationships where both sides are a bit right and a bit wrong. I'm happy with any rating and any configuration of gender or sexuality. (There are some songs where I have a stronger 'default' understanding of the gender of the participants, but don't feel limited by that.)

I like fantasy and sci fi and magic realism and also realism. I like all moods except pure fluff or pure misery porn. I like a bit of truth in my fiction: little practical details or bits of history or deconstructed 'how would that really work' tropes. And if the 'truth' relates to how real people behave and how they construct their worlds, that's excellent. I like competence and loyalty. I like trains. I like vampires and dragons and gargoyles and wings. I like fairy tales. I like a lot of things. I'm open to what you come up with.

I don't like: plots involving addiction or thrill-seeking with mind-altering substances; amnesia plots; injury to hands.

I hope to give you something to work with, rather than something that ties you down.

I haven't asked for art before in an exchange, so I'm not sure what general tips to give. I like abstract designs and geometric/floral/decorative patterns worked into things. I like line drawings and subtly shaded colours. I like skylines and a sense of distance. I'm less keen on exaggeratedly cartoonish styles, with large, solid blocks of colour, disproportionate bodies, and crude faces - does that make any sense? I hope so. I hope my individual requests are more helpful.

The Stranger Song - Leonard Cohen
Art
Youtube, lyrics
It's hard to hold the hand of anyone / who is reaching for the sky just to surrender...

I asked for fic last year, but this year, what I'd really like is art. There are so many gorgeous images in this song! I would absolutely love something that works with: you notice there's a highway that is curling up like smoke above his shoulder, or you try the handle of the road, it opens, or beneath the bridge that they are building on some endless river. Or, in a less abstract/magical way, I'd be interested in a character study of the 'you' or the 'he' (golden/rusted arm or not!), or of one of them looking at the other (with suspicion? love? entreaty? so many emotions). I like trains, so if you feel like illustrating a platform arriving/departing scene, that could be neat. I'm less interested in a realistic poker game scene, but if you want to do something symbolic or abstract with the motif of playing cards, that could be cool.

On balance, I'd prefer the "you" character to be female and the "he" character to stay male, but if you are strongly inspired by a different idea, so be it.

Running Through the Garden - Fleetwood Mac
Fanfiction, Art
Youtube, lyrics
Until she herself / Understood her garden / Leaving her heart broken / No future at all...

I want to know everything about this song. There's so much at stake, and the implied history is so painful. I mostly interpret the 'garden' as having some magical or mythic power.

One way I see it is as as some kind of Rapunzel story, in which the "witch" has complicated motivations, and the "Rapunzel" figure is also in danger of becoming a "witch". Or you could run with an Edenic theme. Or perhaps you can find a way to relate this a real garden? (good luck).

I interpret this as having two characters, both female, but there's scope for more or fewer, and other genders.

For fic: I don't require a happy story here, exactly, but I'd like the characters to have some agency in their survival or success or downfall.

For art: I'd like to see the garden! I'd also be interested in seeing a character's relationship illustrated with it (the conflict! the revelations!) - either someone eponymously 'running through' this garden, or maybe trying to cut parts of it down... Is one of the characters magically or spiritually connected to plants? That could be cool to illustrate. And of course the way the characters relate to each other could be fascinating to explore visually.

No Fandom
Podfic

If it suits you, I'd prefer something with a fantastic, mythic or science-fictional angle, and possibly towards the shorter end of the scale (i.e. under 4k). I have a couple of suggestions: I think El Staplador's Do Not Tap on the Glass would be great to record, because of its use of second person and its enthralling atmosphere. I also more recently enjoyed marginaliana's But I must gather knots of flowers and buds, and garlands gay - I like the understated way it unfolded, and the lovely descriptions, and there's potential for some fun nuance when recording the character interactions. (Both of these writers have appropriate permission statements.) Or, if you're considering recording one of my own stories to give back to me, I would be most excited to receive The Zoo at the End of the Universe or accustom me to joy. And any eligible story previously gifted to me might be neat to hear reinterpreted as a podfic.

If those don't work for you, then some more guidelines: I'd prefer clear, straightforward prose to opaque and highly-styled prose with dense and ornate metaphors. I'd prefer not to receive a story whose overall message is that humans suck, and I'd prefer you avoid gore and graphic violence. I can find all of those interesting and entertaining in written work, but it's harder to skim, or distance myself, from confusing writing or unpleasant themes when I'm listening to them.

This is my first time asking for podfic (exciting!!), so I apologise if this request is styled oddly.

Instinct - Crowded House
Fanfiction
Youtube, lyrics
Do you recognize the nervous twitch / That exposes the weakness of the myth?

Basically, just spin a story for me out of this imagery, and I'll be happy. I get an oddly hopeful vibe from it (although that has basis in "laughing at the stony face of gloom"). One possible interpretation is some kind of monster hunter. If you go that route, I'd prefer it to be in a world that resembles ours rather than pure fantasy. And I'd prefer the viewpoint character not to be merely deluded. But the "monsters" don't have to be literal at all. Just the line and you feel your attraction to him has the potential to complicate the rest of the story a whole lot.

I have a weakness for stories about stories, and the lines Separate the fiction from the fact / Been a little slow to react intrigue me. Yes, where are the lines drawn for our character or characters?

I have no preference regarding character genders here.

King of the World - Steely Dan
Art
Youtube, lyrics
No marigolds in the promised land /There's a hole in the ground where they used to grow...

I have a lot of favourite songs whose lyrics are really depressing, but from which I somehow got an uplifting or hopeful sense. It's a thing. This is one of those songs. It's a story about a nuclear apocalypse, but it's also about connection: the singer is trying to make contact with people he knew from before the disaster, and I get the sense that he succeeds.

Some of the things I might like to see: empty cities, skylines; signs of man's abandonment but also signs of the world that exists after man. I'd like to see our hero "driving in their car" or speaking into their radio. (Maybe contrasted with someone listening to their own radio?) Or: maybe a scene of (urban?) destruction in which hints of continued human existence can be seen.

I know it's kind of hard to depict what ISN'T there, but marigolds are my favourite flower - if you want to work them in, maybe a contrasting before/after scene? Like, someone looking at a scene and imagining what was there before contrasted with what's there now, and the 'before' scene involving marigolds? :P Please don't feel constrained by that - it's just one of many, many things I'd be interested in. But since they are my favourite flower, I thought I might as well throw that out there.

A three-panel or similar comic might work really well here, if you like creating in that format.

I know that apocalypses require death, but I'd prefer not to see a lot of corpses. Thanks.

By default, I imagine the narrator as male, speaking with a particular other male person in mind, but please use whatever genders you like.

I may add other songs to this letter. This entry is also posted at https://morbane.dreamwidth.org/23349.html. There are comments. Please comment either here or there.