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Dear Yuletide Writer 2022
I'm Runespoor on Ao3 and I want to thank you for writing a story for me. Please don't feel like you have to research through my AO3 profile I promise it's not very relevant to Yuletide (for one there's a lot more non-con over there than here).
Likes:
• friends-to-enemies-to-it’s-complicated
• m u t u a l p i n i n g
• slow burn, including the version where sex happens before anyone admits to feelings
• denial
• angst with a happy ending
• putting characters through the wringer with a happy ending
• intense relationships: codependency, relationships that straddle the line between “&” and “/”, being scared of how you feel for this person because it’s giving them too much power, being greater together than apart, being awfuller together than apart, “I would do terrible/amazing things for you” and "I have done terrible things to you"
• hopeful endings
• aftermathes, picking-up-the-pieces, rebuilding
• fraught communication: double or triple meanings (on purpose or accidental), tokens as reminders/code, carefully avoiding outright lying, brazen lying, putting on a scene for the gallery, characters saying the most cruel thing, things left unsaid, things pointedly left unsaid, dancing around issues, declarations of love/hate
• emotional showdowns: understated ones, big dramatic ones after a dramatic scene, public denial, private denials, displays of support, magical curses that force you to speak the truth (and the aftermath), using the truth like a weapon
• performative relationships that don’t reflect exactly the private truth of the relationship
• transactional relationships: characters who are together because each has something the other want (including fake dating)
• a willingness to use oneself, one’s loved ones, or the love between you to achieve your goals
• the emotional cost of the above, especially in pining, denial, and sense memory after you get blood on your hands
• betrayal and loyalty: your loved ones for your ideals, your ideals for your loved ones, your morality for your ambition, your ambition for the greater good… including the opposite way you thought you were going to choose; compromising between the two while knowing you might not if it were someone else; a character concealing the fact they didn't betray someone the way one might expect they'd conceal a betrayal
• explicitly making exceptions or refusing to make exceptions for your loved ones
• when characters are truly in love and agree after angsting that this love isn’t the most important thing to them, and the fact that they agree about it is one of the reasons they’re in love
• idealists: ruthless idealists, idealists who reject ruthlessness at every turn, people whose only ideals are their devotion to another person, believers in realpolitiks, people who are very angry at discovering they have ideals, people on the run talking about what kind of a world they want, talking about the cost/limits of idealism/pragmatism
• politics: lawmaking, every day urban planning, negotiations, intrigue, alliances, etc!
• stories about ruling: rulers who want to fix their country, starting with building a hospital/passing a law banning child labour/studying how they’re going to beat the famine this winter, what kind of difficulties they face, how they deal with them, how they address the misgivings (both legitimate and not!) of their opponents, etc, with as many details as you can put in
• little details that add to the world-building: traditions, celebrations, the kind of food, etc.
• imagery, local color, a sense of place and atmosphere – traditions, celebrations, passing seasons, the color and shape of buildings and streets, what kind of people live there, how the city changes between day and night. The contrast between the overarching stakes and the mundane (we’re saving the world but we still need to buy food) and the mention of one when you’re dealing with the other.
• travels to the center of the mind/inside someone's dreams to save them (Eurydice plot with "inside their own mind/nightmares" as "the underworld" = A++)
• resentment, nostalgia, love
• a contrast between personal life being rocky/angsty and professional/occupational life being a success (still rocky obstacles to be surmounted, but no-one can look at the proceedings/results and think "this person is a disaster," and yet)
• semi-sentient objects, especially places, especially canonical places
Dislikes:
• Christmas fics
• different setting AU
• A/B/O
• a fic that's nothing but fluff (schmoop, WAFF, slice-of-life where people have a nice day and the focus is on that, comfort fic)
• babies/children fic, wedding fic, proposal fic
• non-con (the kind where someone isn’t having a good time)
• bleak, banal unhappiness
• unrequested non-canonical pairings (background canon pairings are fine), unless otherwise stated
• kink-wise: pet-play, voyeurism, being caught in the act, language kink (by which I mean "speaking a foreign language as a kink"), daddy kink, TPE, gags, toys.
• shovel talks
• I have a bit of an embarrassment squick
• I cannot think it would be relevant, but the specifics of current/recent politics
smut-wise, if you're writing Magical Diary or Folk of the Air:
i like dirty talk, humiliation (including breeding kink as a threat), orgasm delay, begging/desperation, wall sex, rough sex, antagonistic sex, holding down/pinning down, manhandling, overstimulation, tears, oral or vaginal fingering, blowjobs, comeplay, riding, penetrative sex (+two-in-one, +spitroasting), nipple play, sex that is obviously a terrible idea but is so good, under-negotiated kink, fuck-or-die, a need for secrecy/~forbidden relationships~, infidelity rp, "I could do anything to you right now and you would let me", “you fucking bastaah yes just like that”, the more experienced/less vulnerable partner being surprised by the other/not being in control (switching/powerbottoming/turning the tables), gentle sex as a powerplay, gentle sex as an admission you're not ready to make, the inherent intrigue of banging a royal (rounding back to "political favors" and "breeding kink")
i don't like formalized kink, safewords in contexts where “no” would work, sex where someone is in total control, spanking, TPE, daddy or mommy kink, pet-play, voyeurism unless planned by the person(s) being watched, being caught in the act, public sex, non-con where someone isn’t enjoying themselves, omegaverse, ageplay
Folk of the Air
characters: Jude; Cardan; Madoc
you don't have to include Cardan AND Madoc. As long as the fic includes Jude and either of them I'm happy!
DNW: PWP, fluff, curtain fic, major permanent character death, setting change, non-con, shovel talks, mariage/proposal/pregnancy except as fitting their use in canon (I wouldn't enjoy reading about happy, romantic mariage preparations, but fake-marrying or marrying for political gain is fine), non-canonical pregnancies, pregnancy and/or children, pre-canon divergence.
I love the characters, and the intense, layered relationships between them, and I love Faerie and its politics. I love Jude! I love angry girls intent on survival with precious little room for morality (but who do turn out to have morals despite everything - the parallel/contrast between Jude and Taryn ), and Cardan is such a wonderful Trash Fave. I adore Madoc's complex character and the relationship with his daughter-figures. (I was rec'ed Folk of the Air because of Madoc, and he's indeed one of my favorite parts of the book)
Here’s a few prompts:
Magical Diary
characters: any [Damien Ramsey; Mary Sue; Gary Stu; William Danson]
yes hello i’m trash and I ship everyone here. (yes, including flirty-scheming!Gary Stu with grumpy-compassionate!Mary Sue.)(note: "ship" can translate to "flirt" or "banter" if gen's more your speed!) Mary Sue/Damien and Gary Stu/William are my respective OTPs. but they’re flexible, if you see what i mean.
Subtext/pre-relationship works fine here if you’d rather write something gennish.
other ship notes: if it comes up, please don’t break up Donald/Ellen.
DNW: Christmas fic, fluff, language kink, pre-canon, non-con (the kind where someone isn’t having a good time; dubcon where everyone is having a good time/~wants~ it despite reservations is fine, no-means-yes is fine. except William, William doesn’t dubcon people.), permanent major character death, setting change, torture, marriage except for magical/political gain, pregnancy, bleak/banal unhappiness, voyeurism unless the people being watched are doing it on purpose as part of a seduction process, the jealous kind of possessiveness, amnesia, body switching, unrequested non-canonical pairings, if you include both Mary and Gary: please go with Horse Hall canon (Gary was in Illyria).
As far as names go, I like Mary Sue and Gary!
I don’t mind fic with dark/disturbing undertones or overtones for this fandom! Think “Damien route dark” and “the magical world doesn’t explain the rules to 16yo wildseeds and then punishes them for breaking them.” If the walking content warning that is Damien is involved, I just want him to not have all the power in whatever relationship is taking place by the end of the fic, I ship him because I really like messed-up relationships where and the idea of Damien's lover "stealing back" power from him/being able to "fight back"/manipulate him etc (it's revenge + obsession all in one sexy package!).
If you want to worldbuild, especially on Illyria (and Gary Stu’s parents) or Otherworld, please do! I’d love to know more about it, if that’s where you want to set your fic. People going to Illyria in futurefic for research/resources and it leading to reconnection/OT3/OT4 time! A tropey “and now they must date/get married for magical/inheritance reasons” fic would work great. A tropey “and now they must marry someone who’s not the LI, and there’s not a lot of angst about infidelity but there’s politics/magic/intrigue/we shouldn’t but we really want to even though we’re such a bad idea” would be fantastic. I would also love that generic-ish prompt about “someone is cursed and now someone else must go through their mind to find them back.”
I love love love post-canon fics and most of the prompts under are about variations of that. They're examples and flexible.
Scholomance [SPOILERS FOR THE GOLDEN ENCLAVES]
characters: Galadriel “El” Higgins; Liesel
DNW: straight headcanons, explicit smut, marriage/proposal/pregnancy, fic focused on fluff/waffiness, non-con/dub-con (except for external, "magic made them do it" type of causes), fluffy established relationship, major permanent character death, setting changes, pet-centric fics, shovel talks, body-switching, pre-canon divergence, age regression
I absolutely ADORE El (angry girl just trying to SurviveTM without becoming the big bad who has a lot of feelings, a lot of morals, and is EXTREMELY ANGRY about all of it). I love the world-building, the politics of the world, the depiction of the wariness and pragmatism and struggles of day-to-day life. I am a fan of the trope “someone is cursed into a magical coma and someone else must travel through their mind to find them”, if that sounds fun like a fun idea to you
You can ABSOLUTELY add more characters as you see fit, I Love Everyone In This Bar.
Pairing-wise, I ship them, especially as a non-exclusive thing. I also ship El/Orion and Liesel/getting-what-she-wants, and the open Orion/El/Liesel/Alfie polycule. (also willing to ship Liesel/Liu or Liesel/Aadhya For The Lol, see prompts for what I mean by lol) I'm more interested in their wanting to bite each other's nose off while supporting each other and calling out the flaws in each other's plans and/or outlooks than in fluffy romance. Sentiment for them can totally be saving each other's life (or lies) and realizing they're friends - it IS sentiment, but it's not necessarily fluffy and it doesn't have to be romantic! So if you don't ship them, just focusing on the working-together-and-the-inherent-tension-of-their-personalities works FINE for me!
Here’s a few prompts:
Triangle Strategy
characters: Cordelia; Avlora; Frederica; Roland
you can choose to write only a subset of these characters, as detailed below: Cordelia-Avlora and Frederica-Roland
DNW: Christmas, fluff, PWP, setting changes, pregnancy, Glenbrook-family-incest.
What a good game, what good characters, what good angst! I'm not super interested in the Golden Ending post-canon set-up, but if you want to write Cordelia and Avlora during the chapters when Avlora is part of the army I'd be interested in that!
For Cordelia-Avlora, I'm mostly interested in More Of Their Relationship (especially as a ship), and if you don't ship them, I'm extremely interested in More Of Queen Cordelia. More on this in the prompts. The swoon-worthy romanticism of the scene of Cordelia showing her vulnerabilities to Avlora, reading Avlora perfectly, and Avlora swearing herself to Cordelia? pheewwwwwww.
For Frederica-Roland, I find Roland very well written, and I adore Frederica. I love that they superficially have a lot of morals in common, but it crashes down (because Frederica has a vision and Roland lacks one; because Frederica grows stronger as the game goes while Roland is more and more hurt by the narrative; etc) and their friendship (exemplified by the moment she and he both go to the Source without taking anyone else with them) is a casualty of the game.
Pairing wise I don't mind any of the canon pairs/subtext/pre-relationship but you don't have to include them. If it's relevant I like both Roland/Huguette and Huguette/Giovanna, and I can definitely roll with Roland having had a one-sided crush on Maxwell. I also don't mind Serenoa/Roland as a bg thing, though I wouldn't want the topic to be the focus of the fic.
Route-wise I confess to a slight preference for the surrendering Roland in ch7 and going with Frederica's plan in ch13 - I like the drama of it all and I think Cordelia benefits from making Roland escape a lot, it's a really good route for her. This is more telling as the kind of things I enjoy rather than a "I would HATE a story that doesn't occur in that route", go with what works best for your story.
I'd prefer the Roselle to have been defended in ch11, but if you have an idea that doesn't thematically if that didn't happen, you can go for it!
Here's a few prompts:
Likes:
• friends-to-enemies-to-it’s-complicated
• m u t u a l p i n i n g
• slow burn, including the version where sex happens before anyone admits to feelings
• denial
• angst with a happy ending
• putting characters through the wringer with a happy ending
• intense relationships: codependency, relationships that straddle the line between “&” and “/”, being scared of how you feel for this person because it’s giving them too much power, being greater together than apart, being awfuller together than apart, “I would do terrible/amazing things for you” and "I have done terrible things to you"
• hopeful endings
• aftermathes, picking-up-the-pieces, rebuilding
• fraught communication: double or triple meanings (on purpose or accidental), tokens as reminders/code, carefully avoiding outright lying, brazen lying, putting on a scene for the gallery, characters saying the most cruel thing, things left unsaid, things pointedly left unsaid, dancing around issues, declarations of love/hate
• emotional showdowns: understated ones, big dramatic ones after a dramatic scene, public denial, private denials, displays of support, magical curses that force you to speak the truth (and the aftermath), using the truth like a weapon
• performative relationships that don’t reflect exactly the private truth of the relationship
• transactional relationships: characters who are together because each has something the other want (including fake dating)
• a willingness to use oneself, one’s loved ones, or the love between you to achieve your goals
• the emotional cost of the above, especially in pining, denial, and sense memory after you get blood on your hands
• betrayal and loyalty: your loved ones for your ideals, your ideals for your loved ones, your morality for your ambition, your ambition for the greater good… including the opposite way you thought you were going to choose; compromising between the two while knowing you might not if it were someone else; a character concealing the fact they didn't betray someone the way one might expect they'd conceal a betrayal
• explicitly making exceptions or refusing to make exceptions for your loved ones
• when characters are truly in love and agree after angsting that this love isn’t the most important thing to them, and the fact that they agree about it is one of the reasons they’re in love
• idealists: ruthless idealists, idealists who reject ruthlessness at every turn, people whose only ideals are their devotion to another person, believers in realpolitiks, people who are very angry at discovering they have ideals, people on the run talking about what kind of a world they want, talking about the cost/limits of idealism/pragmatism
• politics: lawmaking, every day urban planning, negotiations, intrigue, alliances, etc!
• stories about ruling: rulers who want to fix their country, starting with building a hospital/passing a law banning child labour/studying how they’re going to beat the famine this winter, what kind of difficulties they face, how they deal with them, how they address the misgivings (both legitimate and not!) of their opponents, etc, with as many details as you can put in
• little details that add to the world-building: traditions, celebrations, the kind of food, etc.
• imagery, local color, a sense of place and atmosphere – traditions, celebrations, passing seasons, the color and shape of buildings and streets, what kind of people live there, how the city changes between day and night. The contrast between the overarching stakes and the mundane (we’re saving the world but we still need to buy food) and the mention of one when you’re dealing with the other.
• travels to the center of the mind/inside someone's dreams to save them (Eurydice plot with "inside their own mind/nightmares" as "the underworld" = A++)
• resentment, nostalgia, love
• a contrast between personal life being rocky/angsty and professional/occupational life being a success (still rocky obstacles to be surmounted, but no-one can look at the proceedings/results and think "this person is a disaster," and yet)
• semi-sentient objects, especially places, especially canonical places
Dislikes:
• Christmas fics
• different setting AU
• A/B/O
• a fic that's nothing but fluff (schmoop, WAFF, slice-of-life where people have a nice day and the focus is on that, comfort fic)
• babies/children fic, wedding fic, proposal fic
• non-con (the kind where someone isn’t having a good time)
• bleak, banal unhappiness
• unrequested non-canonical pairings (background canon pairings are fine), unless otherwise stated
• kink-wise: pet-play, voyeurism, being caught in the act, language kink (by which I mean "speaking a foreign language as a kink"), daddy kink, TPE, gags, toys.
• shovel talks
• I have a bit of an embarrassment squick
• I cannot think it would be relevant, but the specifics of current/recent politics
smut-wise, if you're writing Magical Diary or Folk of the Air:
i like dirty talk, humiliation (including breeding kink as a threat), orgasm delay, begging/desperation, wall sex, rough sex, antagonistic sex, holding down/pinning down, manhandling, overstimulation, tears, oral or vaginal fingering, blowjobs, comeplay, riding, penetrative sex (+two-in-one, +spitroasting), nipple play, sex that is obviously a terrible idea but is so good, under-negotiated kink, fuck-or-die, a need for secrecy/~forbidden relationships~, infidelity rp, "I could do anything to you right now and you would let me", “you fucking bastaah yes just like that”, the more experienced/less vulnerable partner being surprised by the other/not being in control (switching/powerbottoming/turning the tables), gentle sex as a powerplay, gentle sex as an admission you're not ready to make, the inherent intrigue of banging a royal (rounding back to "political favors" and "breeding kink")
i don't like formalized kink, safewords in contexts where “no” would work, sex where someone is in total control, spanking, TPE, daddy or mommy kink, pet-play, voyeurism unless planned by the person(s) being watched, being caught in the act, public sex, non-con where someone isn’t enjoying themselves, omegaverse, ageplay
Folk of the Air
characters: Jude; Cardan; Madoc
you don't have to include Cardan AND Madoc. As long as the fic includes Jude and either of them I'm happy!
DNW: PWP, fluff, curtain fic, major permanent character death, setting change, non-con, shovel talks, mariage/proposal/pregnancy except as fitting their use in canon (I wouldn't enjoy reading about happy, romantic mariage preparations, but fake-marrying or marrying for political gain is fine), non-canonical pregnancies, pregnancy and/or children, pre-canon divergence.
I love the characters, and the intense, layered relationships between them, and I love Faerie and its politics. I love Jude! I love angry girls intent on survival with precious little room for morality (but who do turn out to have morals despite everything - the parallel/contrast between Jude and Taryn ), and Cardan is such a wonderful Trash Fave. I adore Madoc's complex character and the relationship with his daughter-figures. (I was rec'ed Folk of the Air because of Madoc, and he's indeed one of my favorite parts of the book)
Here’s a few prompts:
- Jude/Cardan: a canon divergence AU where the set-up of mid-book two lasts longer. I love the “enemies having sex as they run the court, it’s more complicated than that but they don’t really trust one another” setting and basically I would love more of that. Intrigue and we-shouldn’t-but-we-totally-do. Slow-burn hatred that's a bit more complicated than hatred and politics. I live for this shit. I would have read three more novels of this.
- if there's a canon-divergence you want to write, go for it! I love canon-divergence.
- if your canon-divergence includes an idea about badwrong Jude/either of Cardan's older brothers after one of them momentarily wins the crown (depending on the specifics of the story) while Jude and Cardan find themselves into an uneasy alliance and hatebang about it I am there for it.
- Madoc post-canon, taking over that apartment building (I would prefer if there were cameos from other characters, either from the tagset or not, especially Vivienne), because "exiled Fae general becomes the incognito neighbor of perfectly normal humans" sounds hilarious, does he recruit ppl, what do the neighbours make of him and his wife, are there kids who adopt him because he'll teach how to swordfight; maybe deciding or not to try and take back the crown? Does Jude get letters? Are Jude and Cardan expected to show up for family dinner once a month?
- canon-divergence during the first or second book where Jude is Unavailable for a while (....magical coma???) and Taryn and Cardan must team up to have Taryn play Jude's part because of reasons! or canon-divergence AU where things go a little less fast all the time and Taryn and Jude and Cardan play politics at court and Taryn gets to side-eye her sister's life-choices and also side-eye Cardan because really and they're allies? maybe?
- any post-canon with Unexpected Problems, either political or magical. Negotiating an alliance? Maybe there's Unexpected Magical Problems after the shenanigans of the third tome (maybe Jude becoming queen or Cardan becoming a giant snake has negative consequences on their health and they need a cure)!
- I’m waiving the dnw about setting change for the purpose of saying, if you wanted to add the Homestuck quadrants to this series, I,,,,, would not be in any way opposed,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, “Jude/Cardan and quadrants” has been living in my brain rent free for two years now...... (for the purpose of this prompt you can ignore the DNW about unrequested non-canonical pairings, because quadrants are more fun when you can mention other things, even if they're past or unrequited.)
Magical Diary
characters: any [Damien Ramsey; Mary Sue; Gary Stu; William Danson]
yes hello i’m trash and I ship everyone here. (yes, including flirty-scheming!Gary Stu with grumpy-compassionate!Mary Sue.)(note: "ship" can translate to "flirt" or "banter" if gen's more your speed!) Mary Sue/Damien and Gary Stu/William are my respective OTPs. but they’re flexible, if you see what i mean.
Subtext/pre-relationship works fine here if you’d rather write something gennish.
other ship notes: if it comes up, please don’t break up Donald/Ellen.
DNW: Christmas fic, fluff, language kink, pre-canon, non-con (the kind where someone isn’t having a good time; dubcon where everyone is having a good time/~wants~ it despite reservations is fine, no-means-yes is fine. except William, William doesn’t dubcon people.), permanent major character death, setting change, torture, marriage except for magical/political gain, pregnancy, bleak/banal unhappiness, voyeurism unless the people being watched are doing it on purpose as part of a seduction process, the jealous kind of possessiveness, amnesia, body switching, unrequested non-canonical pairings, if you include both Mary and Gary: please go with Horse Hall canon (Gary was in Illyria).
As far as names go, I like Mary Sue and Gary!
I don’t mind fic with dark/disturbing undertones or overtones for this fandom! Think “Damien route dark” and “the magical world doesn’t explain the rules to 16yo wildseeds and then punishes them for breaking them.” If the walking content warning that is Damien is involved, I just want him to not have all the power in whatever relationship is taking place by the end of the fic, I ship him because I really like messed-up relationships where and the idea of Damien's lover "stealing back" power from him/being able to "fight back"/manipulate him etc (it's revenge + obsession all in one sexy package!).
If you want to worldbuild, especially on Illyria (and Gary Stu’s parents) or Otherworld, please do! I’d love to know more about it, if that’s where you want to set your fic. People going to Illyria in futurefic for research/resources and it leading to reconnection/OT3/OT4 time! A tropey “and now they must date/get married for magical/inheritance reasons” fic would work great. A tropey “and now they must marry someone who’s not the LI, and there’s not a lot of angst about infidelity but there’s politics/magic/intrigue/we shouldn’t but we really want to even though we’re such a bad idea” would be fantastic. I would also love that generic-ish prompt about “someone is cursed and now someone else must go through their mind to find them back.”
I love love love post-canon fics and most of the prompts under are about variations of that. They're examples and flexible.
- post-canon SECRET RELATIONSHIP! (Mary Sue/Damien, Gary Stu/William where William goes to work in Illyria maybe, Gary Stu/Damien). Mary and Damien seducing one another, Gary seducing William. Damien or William trying to fit in Illyria, Mary balancing Horse Hall and Damien and sneaking around to meet him, Gary not telling his parents about William, all that good stuff. (do the Dansons know.)
If you wrote Damien/Gary, I wouuuuuld prefer if you found a way not to have them actually go through the soul ritual? Maybe Gary can be subtly warning people off on the down-low. Maybe Damien gets distracted playing with Gary. If you want to write a dark corruption story, go for it, though. - futurefic OT3 (or OT4) get-together! Mary Sue and Damien end up ~seducing William (maybe in the world where she lost her powers, and William's on the right side of the law, but compromises more and more until he's working with them from inside the system; or in a good-end world, Mary Sue and Damien are trying to convince William Damien is totally on level, legally speaking, now - and maybe it's true, legally speaking - and they ~seduce him); something about Damien politicking to reconquer his throne (for some reason the soul ritual isn't gonna work), does he get help from Gary and Illyria, is William a diplomatic contact? years-post-Horse Hall OT4 where Damien/Mary, on the run, go for Illyria for research, and there they find dear William, who's very close to the Illyrian crown prince… (it doesn't need to end in an OT4, I just think the set-up has potential)
- "William meets one of them/more of them years later through work, how does it go" can be liberally applied and mixed-and-matched.
- in a world where neither Damien nor William dated a PC, they get back together! (maybe it starts with hate-sex! maybe it's surprisingly rom-com-y! maybe it's years down the line! maybe it's a canon-divergence of their last year!)
- futurefic mixing the light and the dark: Mary Sue is an up-and-coming Otherworld agent and still dating Damien and so long as he doesn't perform soul rituals in her living room it's not her jurisdiction. (and maybe she's tempted to sell him out for a guaranteed promotion, or maybe he proposes to her because Magical Inheritance Reasons, and they give each other's tips, and presumably the sex is great.)
- waiving the setting change dnw here to say that,,,, if you wanted to add Homestuck quadrants,,,,,,,, the quadrant-flipping and quadrant-confusion in these relationships,,,,,, or if you literally want to write a Homestuck AU I'm here for it too. (for the purpose of this prompt you can ignore the DNW about unrequested non-canonical pairings except Grabiner/Mary or Grabiner/Gary, because quadrants are more fun when you can mention other things, even if they're past or unrequited.)
- if there's a canon-divergence messed-up fic on one of these ships you've always wanted to write, NOW IS YOUR CHANCE. (Gary seducing William but fucking Damien on the side? the Mary Sue equivalent? Go go go.)
Scholomance [SPOILERS FOR THE GOLDEN ENCLAVES]
characters: Galadriel “El” Higgins; Liesel
DNW: straight headcanons, explicit smut, marriage/proposal/pregnancy, fic focused on fluff/waffiness, non-con/dub-con (except for external, "magic made them do it" type of causes), fluffy established relationship, major permanent character death, setting changes, pet-centric fics, shovel talks, body-switching, pre-canon divergence, age regression
I absolutely ADORE El (angry girl just trying to SurviveTM without becoming the big bad who has a lot of feelings, a lot of morals, and is EXTREMELY ANGRY about all of it). I love the world-building, the politics of the world, the depiction of the wariness and pragmatism and struggles of day-to-day life. I am a fan of the trope “someone is cursed into a magical coma and someone else must travel through their mind to find them”, if that sounds fun like a fun idea to you
You can ABSOLUTELY add more characters as you see fit, I Love Everyone In This Bar.
Pairing-wise, I ship them, especially as a non-exclusive thing. I also ship El/Orion and Liesel/getting-what-she-wants, and the open Orion/El/Liesel/Alfie polycule. (also willing to ship Liesel/Liu or Liesel/Aadhya For The Lol, see prompts for what I mean by lol) I'm more interested in their wanting to bite each other's nose off while supporting each other and calling out the flaws in each other's plans and/or outlooks than in fluffy romance. Sentiment for them can totally be saving each other's life (or lies) and realizing they're friends - it IS sentiment, but it's not necessarily fluffy and it doesn't have to be romantic! So if you don't ship them, just focusing on the working-together-and-the-inherent-tension-of-their-personalities works FINE for me!
Here’s a few prompts:
- wanna canon-diverge by making Liesel and El crash into each other before The Last Graduate? For instance in A Deadly Education? I would LOVE that. They would have a very different kind of bond than El and Aadhya, and it shouldn't replace Aadhya.
- I would also love to know what Liesel was thinking of everything during A Deadly Education.
- remember El fake-dating Orion for social capital in A Deadly Education? That (that she ends up not using right, i love her so much) is PEAK my jam and i would read so much more of it if you want to canon-diverge.
- what if one of El or Aadhya or Liu had a rivalry? going on with Liesel? and/or found themselves kissing? Liesel? what would be the board of directors' (read: the other friends') opinions and reactions. (five times [X] kissed Liesel and was very mad about it)
- in all prompts that feature Liesel interacting with El or her friends before TLG, Liesel going "wtf wtf wtf" at herself whenever she makes an ~irrational choice would also make a great fic. Five times Liesel acted out of her plan because of El Higgins/Yi Liu and went D: at herself.
- if you wanna write more about them during TLG I'm also interested!
- if you want to write a story taking place during the grim enclave war AU, a story with at least a gleam of hope, but that features on the daily struggles and the unlikely alliances, I would love that.
- post-canon: how long Does it take for El to realize/admit that she's in a polycule and that she and Liesel are a thing while Orion is guarding the Scholomance?
- post-canon: what if Something Goes Wrong at the Scholomance, and El and Liesel and co have to come fix it? Maybe Orion finds himself cut off from the Scholomance or the school starts to shut itself off? I love the Scholomance and would love to read more about it post-canon
Triangle Strategy
characters: Cordelia; Avlora; Frederica; Roland
you can choose to write only a subset of these characters, as detailed below: Cordelia-Avlora and Frederica-Roland
DNW: Christmas, fluff, PWP, setting changes, pregnancy, Glenbrook-family-incest.
What a good game, what good characters, what good angst! I'm not super interested in the Golden Ending post-canon set-up, but if you want to write Cordelia and Avlora during the chapters when Avlora is part of the army I'd be interested in that!
For Cordelia-Avlora, I'm mostly interested in More Of Their Relationship (especially as a ship), and if you don't ship them, I'm extremely interested in More Of Queen Cordelia. More on this in the prompts. The swoon-worthy romanticism of the scene of Cordelia showing her vulnerabilities to Avlora, reading Avlora perfectly, and Avlora swearing herself to Cordelia? pheewwwwwww.
For Frederica-Roland, I find Roland very well written, and I adore Frederica. I love that they superficially have a lot of morals in common, but it crashes down (because Frederica has a vision and Roland lacks one; because Frederica grows stronger as the game goes while Roland is more and more hurt by the narrative; etc) and their friendship (exemplified by the moment she and he both go to the Source without taking anyone else with them) is a casualty of the game.
Pairing wise I don't mind any of the canon pairs/subtext/pre-relationship but you don't have to include them. If it's relevant I like both Roland/Huguette and Huguette/Giovanna, and I can definitely roll with Roland having had a one-sided crush on Maxwell. I also don't mind Serenoa/Roland as a bg thing, though I wouldn't want the topic to be the focus of the fic.
Route-wise I confess to a slight preference for the surrendering Roland in ch7 and going with Frederica's plan in ch13 - I like the drama of it all and I think Cordelia benefits from making Roland escape a lot, it's a really good route for her. This is more telling as the kind of things I enjoy rather than a "I would HATE a story that doesn't occur in that route", go with what works best for your story.
I'd prefer the Roselle to have been defended in ch11, but if you have an idea that doesn't thematically if that didn't happen, you can go for it!
Here's a few prompts:
- I'd love to read about the AU where Cordelia has time to implement her plan as explained to Avlora. I would love intrigue and the oppressive atmosphere of Cordelia (and Avlora!) working against Aesfrost right under Thalas and Erika's nose, or earlier (after Cordelia has Roland escape, frex) Cordelia spying on Aesftost and penning letters to Royalist allies/the Wolfforts with her info. If they start a oh-it's-a-terrible-idea-and-they-shouldn't relationship - or if they don't, but they know it's almost as if they were - it would also be amazing.
- Queen Cordelia: the AU where when Roland realizes he wants to abdicate, Cordelia steps up. How this happens is up to you, I just felt the lack of mention of the possibility was a weakness in the game! And Avlora returns from the dead to help her queen.
- Queen Cordelia: Frederica's ending version, where let's say she stays behind, because that bothered me in the game that there's no discussion about it. (if that's what you're going with you can change Benedict's epilogue and the wider political balance as you see fit, I adore Benedict's epilogue but I feel Cordelia being around as Queen might have changed things) If you're interested in this setup but dubious about how to include Avlora, you can choose not to include Avlora if the fic is about Cordelia and Benedict politicking (what would Cordelia think of Benedict's role in Serenoa leaving, would she be grateful for someone staying behind as well as her? Same with Benedict, what would be his opinion on her in those circumstances? We know Cordelia is willing to bend to realpolitik, they'd be a good team).
- if you'd rather keep purely to missing scenes, Avlora's changing opinion on this slip of a girl. More about their time together while Gustadolph was in Whiteholm! Maybe Cordelia already putting out feelers to Patriatte?
- Frederica-Roland : I am SUPER invested in their relationship post-Frederica's ending.
Both times I played this ending, I spent the entire time since the pre-vote convo in chapter 17 until Serenoa's sacrifice on the bridge *seething* at Roland, but following Serenoa's orders, acting as his second-in-command in that moment, and pulling everyone away put him back in a correct place for me. Roland keeping up as Frederica's second-in-command after Serenoa's death would be very cool for me. Bonus if they become a thing. Bonus if they become a thing over their grief over Serenoa. Maybe the Serenoa/Roland relationship was not quite platonic at some point (before either of them knew about Serenoa's parentage; and it got Complicated for Serenoa once he learned about his parentage even if the thing with Roland was in the past anyway) - you absolutely don't have to even think about it if that's a no. Bonus if there's Frederica/Roland/Jerrom or Frederica/Jerrom (how that epilogue image got me to ship Frederica/Roland/Jerrom...). - Frederica-Roland: I would read about a Frederica/Serenoa/Roland get-together type kind of story. Either during the game or in whichever ending works for you! (this can include the Golden Ending). They can be as angsty about the incest as you want them to be, because it's messy, but I ship them because it's messy AND they work well together.
- Frederica-Roland: if you want to write the canon story of how they were becoming super good friends and then it all fell due to Roland's choices I would love that. The bittersweetness! The feeling of betrayal!
- Others: if your story involves going AU (Cordelia gets engaged to Thalas and goes to live in Aesfrost? Engaged to Dragan? Cordelia visits Twinsgate or Svarog visits an occupied Whiteholm and Svarog and Cordelia become allies upon realizing they both want Gustadolph dead? Roland visits Aesfrost as a much younger teen and meets Frederica and may or may not develop feelings (of competition, for instance)) I would never be opposed to seeing more Dragan and Svarog! They can help [whatever is going on; Cordelia politicking to help Glenbrook or help the people of Aesfrost, whichever you prefer; kid Frederica trying to retrieve her mother's diary from the Archives and getting in shenanigans with Roland]!