island_of_reil (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
island_of_reil) wrote2018-01-01 12:37 pm
island_of_reil) wrote2018-01-01 12:37 pm
Dear Chocolatier,
Happy new year! Thanks for offering to write for me, and for reading this letter. As I prefer to err on the side of too much than not enough detail, I will provide as much as I can. Let me start with the fandoms I’m requesting, and then I’ll move on to general preferences.
(Note: All these prompts contain canon spoilers, and the SnK/AoT section contains spoilers for recent chapters.)
Ships:
Felix Harrowgate/Murtagh | Ferrand Carey. Or, rather, Murtagh/Felix, flame and shadow. The missing scene. Pure smut, not any sort of long-term relationship. Felix perceives the same strength of will in Murtagh that he did in Malkar, but without Malkar’s cruelty or evil. How does their assignation play out? Does Felix enjoy it? Is this what prompts him to later realize he’s a martyr, not a tarquin? Does he have a relevant flash of such insight during the scene itself? Does Murtagh engage in pain play with Felix, or does he decide that Felix is scarred enough and go for something more subtle? How does the knowledge of Kay in the next room affect Felix’s pleasure? How do Felix and Murtagh part company, not knowing that they’ll meet again in a nonsexual situation before long?
Alternatively, you could give them a quickie in the rose garden during Kay and Vanessa’s wedding, or post-canon at Grimglass. The Dragon Duke’s “tarquin’s smile” really shouldn’t go to waste, should it?
Gideon Thraxios/White-Eyed Lady. She’s there to meet him and take him away when it’s time; and despite his grief, anger, and regrets, he welcomes her with awe and gratitude. Although I headcanon Gideon as molly/ganumedes rather than janus, given his words to Felix on the bridge in Mélusine you can definitely sexualize this relationship. If you want, you can make the WEL able to take any shape the person desires. If you can pull off first-person Gideon POV that’d be amazing, but please don’t feel pressured to. Bonus: Anything about the water garden under the Mirador that was dedicated to the WEL.
Vincent Demabrien/Shannon Teverius. After Felix and Mildmay leave Marathat, Vincent and Shannon fall in love, bonding over their love of theater and also through their associations with Mehitabel. How do they bring out the best in one another, after their troubled relationships with Ivo and Felix respectively? How do they handle the disapproval of Stephen Teverius, even if it’s far more muted than his disapproval of Shannon/Felix, and even if Stephen trusts Shannon to have no designs on the throne? Does Mehitabel enjoy seeing them together, feel proud of having introduced them, and sublimate how much she misses Felix and Mildmay into her relationships with them? Does Shannon give Vincent armfuls of flowers, too? You can bring Vincent’s ghost-sightings into this if you want.
Methony Feucoronne/Diokletian of the House Aiantis. Methony was uncontrollable, obstinate, “wanton,” janus, magically weak, and desperate to be seen as an equal by the celebrants she seduced. Diokletian tells Felix, “You are quite extraordinarily like her—even more so now.” And when Felix sees her sardonic expression in her portrait, he knows it’s true. Based on that, I’d love pre-canon fic from either her or Diokletian’s point of view, centered on their doomed relationship and her pregnancy.
If the story is from her POV, does she know Felix’s paternity or not? Is he Diokletian’s son? Does she know this but conceal the truth because she doesn’t want any celebrant, and especially not the jealous and pining Diokletian, to have any claim on her? Why does she run away, when she has so much more privilege in Troia than she will in Mélusine — is it because she wants to start over fresh and is too sheltered to have considered money first?
If you continue the story into Mélusine (at which point I guess it’d shade into character study), did Methony know who Mildmay’s father was? Does she join that religious cult out of shame at having been a sex worker and pickpocket — then feel even more shame at having to sell Mildmay to Kolkhis of Britomart, whom she justifiably distrusts on sight? Even though Felix was sold to his Keeper before Mildmay was born, he still spent some time with Methony, as she died in that brothel fire he escaped, so it’s possible the half-brothers met as very small children and never retained the memory. When she sells Mildmay to Kolkhis, does Methony hope her sons will in fact meet again someday?
Diokletian says Methony liked to sing, too. If you have her singing — love songs to her lovers, lullabies to Felix and/or Mildmay, bawdy ballads to her fellow sex workers, magical songs with whatever little magic she had — that’d be lovely, and lyrics would be a bonus.
Kay Brightmore/Felix Harrowgate. They’re both violet, they’re living in a big-ass castle with lots of privacy, Kay’s the Warden, and Felix is its Virtuer who just saved Caloxa and Corambis from disaster. So long as they’re discreet, no one’s going to care if they bone. So they bone. Of course it’s much more tender than “boning” would imply, because they’ve admitted their darkest secrets to one another, and because Kay is blind and Felix saved him from sacrificing himself, Felix feels protective of him …
… or is it more tender, and does Felix feel protective? Felix has also realized he’s a martyr/shadow, and while Kay isn’t canonically into BDSM and I don’t think he’d want to inflict pain on anyone, he’s a warrior and leader who commands fealty even when he doesn’t want it. I think he’d put forth a sexual energy similar to Murtagh’s, the kind Felix could obey with full trust. Maybe their sexual relationship would be D/s without painplay or anything but the lighest of bondage, with Kay using “thou” pronouns to Felix but Felix still addressing him as “you.” Once Kay has a room and Felix’s body mapped out in his mind I don’t see his blindness getting in the way of the D/s. (And if Kay were sitting and Felix kneeling, would Felix still be taller than Kay?)
More soppily, do they sometimes get it on in the lighthouse in summer, Felix overcoming his fear of running water because he wants to please Kay — and because he wants to sit next to him afterward at the water’s edge and describe the current and the breeze and the seashells and everything else? (Do whelks remind them of labyrinths? Is this good or bad?)
The Kalliphorne/Her Husband. They are the cutest, most affectionate deadly sea monsters ever! Tell me anything you want about them. First-person Kalliphorne with her distinct speech pattern would be amazing if you felt up to it, but third-person is perfectly fine.
Ships:
Thara Celehar/Teru Tethimar. AFAIK I’m the only person who’s written this pairing, based on Teru calling Thara by his given name during their audience with Maia after Winternight. I want to see how someone else might write them. How do you envision the nightingale-voiced Archprelate with the frog-voiced erstwhile Prelate and future Witness vel ama? So long as they’re both sympathetic characters and they don’t break up, anything is fine, from fluff to smut to long theological or political discussions to talking about how they’re the black sheep of their respective houses (or Teru was, as he’s the last of the Tethimada) to angst (e.g., they’ve grown old together and one of them dies, promising to wait for the other in Ulis’s realm).
Thara Celehar/Aina Shulivar. Pious, loyal, and emotionally vulnerable iron-woobie cleric with supernatural powers who’s been shamed for his sexuality meets brilliant, murderous revolutionary with a Rasputin-like charm. Okay, sure, they met only once in canon and Thara saw right through Shulivar, whose zeal blinded him to everything. But suppose Shulivar became a Curneise leader because he can pick up on little things … such as something being off about this new zhornu who just sits quietly and listens. Maybe Thara finds him hot if disturbing, which he obviously isn’t going to write Maia about.
Maybe Shulivar picks up on that… or maybe he finds Thara attractive without caring if it’s reciprocal. Does he proposition Thara, who has been so lonely and horny since Evru was executed? Or, perhaps, under the guise of confiding even greater secrets in him, does he lead Thara to one of the Stone Tree’s smallest inner rooms, one that was set aside for trysts, and proceed to noncon/dubcon him? Does he threaten Thara with further public shame, physical danger, or danger to those he serves in order to keep him quiet? If it’s either consensual or dubcon, does Thara stay in Amalo and keep coming back to Shulivar for more of that sweet, sweet extremist dick — perhaps while they’re both on duty, in hidden corners of the airship hangar? I’d also be okay with something set in the Nevennamire before Shulivar’s execution.
Ships:
Ymir/Historia Reiss. Something bittersweet or straight-up angsty, set at any time during canon. Smut is okay but not necessary. I don’t really want fix-it fic. If you want to have Porco Galliard meet Historia in current canon day somehow and tell her how much Ymir loved her, that’d work — especially if Porco then dies without passing on Ymir’s memories to anyone else other than perhaps a newborn Eldian baby. (No Porco/Historia, please.)
Armin Arlert/Annie Leonhardt. I don’t think fluff is at all IC for these two, but any sort of smut, angst, or both would be great. Maybe the fic is set during training, when Armin is still deeply unsure of himself and Annie has some cryptic words of wisdom for him. Or just before the Battle of Stohess, with their mutual deceptions as an undercurrent of tension. Or maybe it’s now the current day in canon, the SC managed to get Annie out of her crystal, and they’ve promised she can see her father again and avenge herself on Marley if she fights with them. What choice does she have?
I’ve always seen Annie as attracted unrequitedly to Eren. Does she start a sexual relationship with Armin because he’s there and she can’t have Eren? Because Armin and she are better matched intellectually? Because now that he’s a shifter too, they have something very heavy and dark in common? Because she still resents him for Stohess and wants to get her emotional claws into him? Because she recognizes him as kin to the Tybur family and that motivates her somehow? Any of the above? What does Armin get out of this — does he feel empathy for Annie, especially since the Marley revelations? Is he trying to manipulate her? Both? Also, has he grown a lot taller in the last three years, dwarfing Annie (whose growth either had stopped or was delayed by suspended animation), or is he still relatively short?
Ships:
Maia Drazhar (TGE) & Thamuris (DoL). Either meditation or a dream carries Maia into the Kloïdanikos on a night when Felix isn’t there. What is this beautiful place? “Thamuris” sounds like an elvish name, but why does this man have such small, round ears, and why is he so sickly-looking? (Or does Maia recognize the consumption because Chenelo died of it, too?) And why, in the names of all the gods, is the night sky backward? Does Cstheio Caireizhasan know about this?
For Thamuris’s part, he is intrigued to be hosting a stranger from a very different world. Maia, who senses himself to be far out of his depth, is unimperially apologetic for having intruded upon this strange and lovely garden and for knowing nothing about oneiromancy. Thamuris assures him (not verbatim), “You are far more polite and pleasant than my usual conversational companion.” And there is some confusion over pronouns. But eventually there is fruitful discussion based in mutual curiosity. Or, given that the minimum is 300 words, you can cut to the chase and have them already familiar with each other from previous visits and comfortably chatting away.
Thara Celehar (TGE) & Ismae Rienne (His Fair Assassin - Robin LaFevers). I can’t possibly figure out how you can set Thara in late 15th-century Brittany, but if you can, great. If not, how about “Ismaö Rienin” as lowborn, badly scarred, gifted with Witnessing powers in which she’s untrained, and running from an abusive and hateful father who wants to force her into marriage to take her off his hands? Instead of the Convent of Saint Mortain, she winds up under Thara’s wing somehow. Despite his bent for solitude and his occasional bluntess, Thara did learn how to mentor while training as a cleric, and he has a great deal of empathy for anyone who rebels against their family’s plans. If “Ismaö” is a marno elf (I ship Ismae/Sybella/Annith as well as Ismae/Sybella without Annith), that’s another thing she and Thara would have in common. If you want to explore worldbuilding around Witnesses for the Dead, including sexism or classism in their ranks, go for it, but of course a short vignette would be fine too.
Seregil í Korit (Nightrunner Series - Lynn Flewelling) & Mildmay Foxe (DoL). I just want to see them sitting in a tavern comparing catburglar notes, dishing political gossip, commiserating about pain-in-the-ass siblings or how magic has affected their respective healths, and maybe talking blade-fighting and its downsides. I can’t see Mildmay as anything but straight, and Seregil is lifebonded to Alec, so I don’t ship the two of them. It’s okay if Seregil privately thinks Mildmay is hot, of course. Either of their worlds, in any country at all, is fine so long as everything’s internally consistent.
Vincent Demabrien (DoL) & Csevet Aisava (TGE). Either ‘verse is fine, so long as if you set it in the Ethuveraz you tweak the DoL names to sound elvish. The reverse doesn’t matter because DoL names are all over the place anyway. I want the two of them to bond over having to deal with touchy, arrogant nobles while being secretaries to great bosses who gave them new leases on life. Plus, maybe Csevet has "worked on his knees/back" now and again, which he’d never admit to Maia, and so while he has (probably) not suffered to the same degree that Vincent has in that regard, he can empathize. Perhaps they can swap discreetly censored stories about the various nobles they’ve, er, serviced, either for pay or for fun, and in Vincent’s (and maybe also Csevet’s?) case flogged, figged, spanked, etc. But I don’t see them as a ship; they’re just too alike.
Cala Athmaza (TGE) & Penny Ngwenya (Matthew Swift Series - Kate Griffin). If you want to set this in the Ethuveraz, then Peneän (“Peno” and “Penu” look too suggestive to me, let alone “Pener,” merciful goddesses) is a young, untested, and powerful mazo who comes from Barizhan or the borderlands. Maybe she has connections to Cetho through the Corat’ Dav Arhos, or maybe she’s just a commoner who has heard so much about the open-minded new emperor and hopes she can fulfill her dreams by studying at the Maz’antheileian. While she appreciates that a woman can now become a mazo-nohecharo, I see her more as a student of Cala’s rather than Kiru’s because his laid-back informality complements her hotheaded nature, and they both have considerable senses of humor and mischief. How many more lines can they put on the Adremaza’s face?
Or you could set it in modern-day London, without changing Cala’s name, and you could have him as … some type of magic-user whom Matthew knows. He introduces Cala to Penny, and the two hit it off immediately. Kate Griffin’s London has all sorts of supernatural creatures, so Cala can stay an elf, although maybe he’d wear a shabby blue T-shirt and jeans instead of a robe, and maybe he’d hide his ears under a tall cap? Or maybe not. I could see Penny/Cala in this situation, although I’m not strongly inclined to ship them. (I ship Penny/Nabeela. Nabeela isn’t dead, shut up.)
Thank you for reading. I look forward to your fic! :)
My AO3 handle is Island_of_Reil.
(Note: All these prompts contain canon spoilers, and the SnK/AoT section contains spoilers for recent chapters.)
Doctrine of Labyrinths | The Goblin Emperor | Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan | Crossover Ships | General Preferences
Fandoms
Doctrine of Labyrinths
Fanworks: Fanfic only, with two exceptions: Gideon/White-Eyed Lady or The Kalliphorne/Her Husband, for which art would be grand too!Ships:
Felix Harrowgate/Murtagh | Ferrand Carey. Or, rather, Murtagh/Felix, flame and shadow. The missing scene. Pure smut, not any sort of long-term relationship. Felix perceives the same strength of will in Murtagh that he did in Malkar, but without Malkar’s cruelty or evil. How does their assignation play out? Does Felix enjoy it? Is this what prompts him to later realize he’s a martyr, not a tarquin? Does he have a relevant flash of such insight during the scene itself? Does Murtagh engage in pain play with Felix, or does he decide that Felix is scarred enough and go for something more subtle? How does the knowledge of Kay in the next room affect Felix’s pleasure? How do Felix and Murtagh part company, not knowing that they’ll meet again in a nonsexual situation before long?
Alternatively, you could give them a quickie in the rose garden during Kay and Vanessa’s wedding, or post-canon at Grimglass. The Dragon Duke’s “tarquin’s smile” really shouldn’t go to waste, should it?
Gideon Thraxios/White-Eyed Lady. She’s there to meet him and take him away when it’s time; and despite his grief, anger, and regrets, he welcomes her with awe and gratitude. Although I headcanon Gideon as molly/ganumedes rather than janus, given his words to Felix on the bridge in Mélusine you can definitely sexualize this relationship. If you want, you can make the WEL able to take any shape the person desires. If you can pull off first-person Gideon POV that’d be amazing, but please don’t feel pressured to. Bonus: Anything about the water garden under the Mirador that was dedicated to the WEL.
Vincent Demabrien/Shannon Teverius. After Felix and Mildmay leave Marathat, Vincent and Shannon fall in love, bonding over their love of theater and also through their associations with Mehitabel. How do they bring out the best in one another, after their troubled relationships with Ivo and Felix respectively? How do they handle the disapproval of Stephen Teverius, even if it’s far more muted than his disapproval of Shannon/Felix, and even if Stephen trusts Shannon to have no designs on the throne? Does Mehitabel enjoy seeing them together, feel proud of having introduced them, and sublimate how much she misses Felix and Mildmay into her relationships with them? Does Shannon give Vincent armfuls of flowers, too? You can bring Vincent’s ghost-sightings into this if you want.
Methony Feucoronne/Diokletian of the House Aiantis. Methony was uncontrollable, obstinate, “wanton,” janus, magically weak, and desperate to be seen as an equal by the celebrants she seduced. Diokletian tells Felix, “You are quite extraordinarily like her—even more so now.” And when Felix sees her sardonic expression in her portrait, he knows it’s true. Based on that, I’d love pre-canon fic from either her or Diokletian’s point of view, centered on their doomed relationship and her pregnancy.
If the story is from her POV, does she know Felix’s paternity or not? Is he Diokletian’s son? Does she know this but conceal the truth because she doesn’t want any celebrant, and especially not the jealous and pining Diokletian, to have any claim on her? Why does she run away, when she has so much more privilege in Troia than she will in Mélusine — is it because she wants to start over fresh and is too sheltered to have considered money first?
If you continue the story into Mélusine (at which point I guess it’d shade into character study), did Methony know who Mildmay’s father was? Does she join that religious cult out of shame at having been a sex worker and pickpocket — then feel even more shame at having to sell Mildmay to Kolkhis of Britomart, whom she justifiably distrusts on sight? Even though Felix was sold to his Keeper before Mildmay was born, he still spent some time with Methony, as she died in that brothel fire he escaped, so it’s possible the half-brothers met as very small children and never retained the memory. When she sells Mildmay to Kolkhis, does Methony hope her sons will in fact meet again someday?
Diokletian says Methony liked to sing, too. If you have her singing — love songs to her lovers, lullabies to Felix and/or Mildmay, bawdy ballads to her fellow sex workers, magical songs with whatever little magic she had — that’d be lovely, and lyrics would be a bonus.
Kay Brightmore/Felix Harrowgate. They’re both violet, they’re living in a big-ass castle with lots of privacy, Kay’s the Warden, and Felix is its Virtuer who just saved Caloxa and Corambis from disaster. So long as they’re discreet, no one’s going to care if they bone. So they bone. Of course it’s much more tender than “boning” would imply, because they’ve admitted their darkest secrets to one another, and because Kay is blind and Felix saved him from sacrificing himself, Felix feels protective of him …
… or is it more tender, and does Felix feel protective? Felix has also realized he’s a martyr/shadow, and while Kay isn’t canonically into BDSM and I don’t think he’d want to inflict pain on anyone, he’s a warrior and leader who commands fealty even when he doesn’t want it. I think he’d put forth a sexual energy similar to Murtagh’s, the kind Felix could obey with full trust. Maybe their sexual relationship would be D/s without painplay or anything but the lighest of bondage, with Kay using “thou” pronouns to Felix but Felix still addressing him as “you.” Once Kay has a room and Felix’s body mapped out in his mind I don’t see his blindness getting in the way of the D/s. (And if Kay were sitting and Felix kneeling, would Felix still be taller than Kay?)
More soppily, do they sometimes get it on in the lighthouse in summer, Felix overcoming his fear of running water because he wants to please Kay — and because he wants to sit next to him afterward at the water’s edge and describe the current and the breeze and the seashells and everything else? (Do whelks remind them of labyrinths? Is this good or bad?)
The Kalliphorne/Her Husband. They are the cutest, most affectionate deadly sea monsters ever! Tell me anything you want about them. First-person Kalliphorne with her distinct speech pattern would be amazing if you felt up to it, but third-person is perfectly fine.
The Goblin Emperor
Fanworks: Either fanfic or fanart.Ships:
Thara Celehar/Teru Tethimar. AFAIK I’m the only person who’s written this pairing, based on Teru calling Thara by his given name during their audience with Maia after Winternight. I want to see how someone else might write them. How do you envision the nightingale-voiced Archprelate with the frog-voiced erstwhile Prelate and future Witness vel ama? So long as they’re both sympathetic characters and they don’t break up, anything is fine, from fluff to smut to long theological or political discussions to talking about how they’re the black sheep of their respective houses (or Teru was, as he’s the last of the Tethimada) to angst (e.g., they’ve grown old together and one of them dies, promising to wait for the other in Ulis’s realm).
Thara Celehar/Aina Shulivar. Pious, loyal, and emotionally vulnerable iron-woobie cleric with supernatural powers who’s been shamed for his sexuality meets brilliant, murderous revolutionary with a Rasputin-like charm. Okay, sure, they met only once in canon and Thara saw right through Shulivar, whose zeal blinded him to everything. But suppose Shulivar became a Curneise leader because he can pick up on little things … such as something being off about this new zhornu who just sits quietly and listens. Maybe Thara finds him hot if disturbing, which he obviously isn’t going to write Maia about.
Maybe Shulivar picks up on that… or maybe he finds Thara attractive without caring if it’s reciprocal. Does he proposition Thara, who has been so lonely and horny since Evru was executed? Or, perhaps, under the guise of confiding even greater secrets in him, does he lead Thara to one of the Stone Tree’s smallest inner rooms, one that was set aside for trysts, and proceed to noncon/dubcon him? Does he threaten Thara with further public shame, physical danger, or danger to those he serves in order to keep him quiet? If it’s either consensual or dubcon, does Thara stay in Amalo and keep coming back to Shulivar for more of that sweet, sweet extremist dick — perhaps while they’re both on duty, in hidden corners of the airship hangar? I’d also be okay with something set in the Nevennamire before Shulivar’s execution.
Shingeki no Kyojin / Attack on Titan
Fanworks: Either fanfic or fanart.Ships:
Ymir/Historia Reiss. Something bittersweet or straight-up angsty, set at any time during canon. Smut is okay but not necessary. I don’t really want fix-it fic. If you want to have Porco Galliard meet Historia in current canon day somehow and tell her how much Ymir loved her, that’d work — especially if Porco then dies without passing on Ymir’s memories to anyone else other than perhaps a newborn Eldian baby. (No Porco/Historia, please.)
Armin Arlert/Annie Leonhardt. I don’t think fluff is at all IC for these two, but any sort of smut, angst, or both would be great. Maybe the fic is set during training, when Armin is still deeply unsure of himself and Annie has some cryptic words of wisdom for him. Or just before the Battle of Stohess, with their mutual deceptions as an undercurrent of tension. Or maybe it’s now the current day in canon, the SC managed to get Annie out of her crystal, and they’ve promised she can see her father again and avenge herself on Marley if she fights with them. What choice does she have?
I’ve always seen Annie as attracted unrequitedly to Eren. Does she start a sexual relationship with Armin because he’s there and she can’t have Eren? Because Armin and she are better matched intellectually? Because now that he’s a shifter too, they have something very heavy and dark in common? Because she still resents him for Stohess and wants to get her emotional claws into him? Because she recognizes him as kin to the Tybur family and that motivates her somehow? Any of the above? What does Armin get out of this — does he feel empathy for Annie, especially since the Marley revelations? Is he trying to manipulate her? Both? Also, has he grown a lot taller in the last three years, dwarfing Annie (whose growth either had stopped or was delayed by suspended animation), or is he still relatively short?
Crossover Ships
Fanworks: Fanfic only.Ships:
Maia Drazhar (TGE) & Thamuris (DoL). Either meditation or a dream carries Maia into the Kloïdanikos on a night when Felix isn’t there. What is this beautiful place? “Thamuris” sounds like an elvish name, but why does this man have such small, round ears, and why is he so sickly-looking? (Or does Maia recognize the consumption because Chenelo died of it, too?) And why, in the names of all the gods, is the night sky backward? Does Cstheio Caireizhasan know about this?
For Thamuris’s part, he is intrigued to be hosting a stranger from a very different world. Maia, who senses himself to be far out of his depth, is unimperially apologetic for having intruded upon this strange and lovely garden and for knowing nothing about oneiromancy. Thamuris assures him (not verbatim), “You are far more polite and pleasant than my usual conversational companion.” And there is some confusion over pronouns. But eventually there is fruitful discussion based in mutual curiosity. Or, given that the minimum is 300 words, you can cut to the chase and have them already familiar with each other from previous visits and comfortably chatting away.
Thara Celehar (TGE) & Ismae Rienne (His Fair Assassin - Robin LaFevers). I can’t possibly figure out how you can set Thara in late 15th-century Brittany, but if you can, great. If not, how about “Ismaö Rienin” as lowborn, badly scarred, gifted with Witnessing powers in which she’s untrained, and running from an abusive and hateful father who wants to force her into marriage to take her off his hands? Instead of the Convent of Saint Mortain, she winds up under Thara’s wing somehow. Despite his bent for solitude and his occasional bluntess, Thara did learn how to mentor while training as a cleric, and he has a great deal of empathy for anyone who rebels against their family’s plans. If “Ismaö” is a marno elf (I ship Ismae/Sybella/Annith as well as Ismae/Sybella without Annith), that’s another thing she and Thara would have in common. If you want to explore worldbuilding around Witnesses for the Dead, including sexism or classism in their ranks, go for it, but of course a short vignette would be fine too.
Seregil í Korit (Nightrunner Series - Lynn Flewelling) & Mildmay Foxe (DoL). I just want to see them sitting in a tavern comparing catburglar notes, dishing political gossip, commiserating about pain-in-the-ass siblings or how magic has affected their respective healths, and maybe talking blade-fighting and its downsides. I can’t see Mildmay as anything but straight, and Seregil is lifebonded to Alec, so I don’t ship the two of them. It’s okay if Seregil privately thinks Mildmay is hot, of course. Either of their worlds, in any country at all, is fine so long as everything’s internally consistent.
Vincent Demabrien (DoL) & Csevet Aisava (TGE). Either ‘verse is fine, so long as if you set it in the Ethuveraz you tweak the DoL names to sound elvish. The reverse doesn’t matter because DoL names are all over the place anyway. I want the two of them to bond over having to deal with touchy, arrogant nobles while being secretaries to great bosses who gave them new leases on life. Plus, maybe Csevet has "worked on his knees/back" now and again, which he’d never admit to Maia, and so while he has (probably) not suffered to the same degree that Vincent has in that regard, he can empathize. Perhaps they can swap discreetly censored stories about the various nobles they’ve, er, serviced, either for pay or for fun, and in Vincent’s (and maybe also Csevet’s?) case flogged, figged, spanked, etc. But I don’t see them as a ship; they’re just too alike.
Cala Athmaza (TGE) & Penny Ngwenya (Matthew Swift Series - Kate Griffin). If you want to set this in the Ethuveraz, then Peneän (“Peno” and “Penu” look too suggestive to me, let alone “Pener,” merciful goddesses) is a young, untested, and powerful mazo who comes from Barizhan or the borderlands. Maybe she has connections to Cetho through the Corat’ Dav Arhos, or maybe she’s just a commoner who has heard so much about the open-minded new emperor and hopes she can fulfill her dreams by studying at the Maz’antheileian. While she appreciates that a woman can now become a mazo-nohecharo, I see her more as a student of Cala’s rather than Kiru’s because his laid-back informality complements her hotheaded nature, and they both have considerable senses of humor and mischief. How many more lines can they put on the Adremaza’s face?
Or you could set it in modern-day London, without changing Cala’s name, and you could have him as … some type of magic-user whom Matthew knows. He introduces Cala to Penny, and the two hit it off immediately. Kate Griffin’s London has all sorts of supernatural creatures, so Cala can stay an elf, although maybe he’d wear a shabby blue T-shirt and jeans instead of a robe, and maybe he’d hide his ears under a tall cap? Or maybe not. I could see Penny/Cala in this situation, although I’m not strongly inclined to ship them. (I ship Penny/Nabeela. Nabeela isn’t dead, shut up.)
General Preferences
What I like/would be fine with
- Explicit sex in any of the romantic ships I’ve listed.
- Either party topping or bottoming in anal sex. I am not averse to penetration being written as dominance (in either the BDSM sense or the general sense), but you don’t have to write it that way.
- One or more participants being underage, so long as they’re both past puberty.
- Canon divergence for the non-crossovers, especially for Thara/Shulivar or Armin/Annie. (Crossovers are kinda divergent by definition.)
- Loyalty. Yeeeeeessssss, please. Oaths of fealty, blood oaths, standing by one’s friend or loved one when everyone else has turned against them, fighting back to back, returning to the scene of battle to save the other, knowingly sacrificing one’s life for the other. This goes especially for Balthasar/Thierry, Ymir/Historia, and Thara & Ismae.
- Leaders being good at leadership. Reciprocating the loyalty of their subordinate(s), in ways described in the previous bullet point. Trusting their judgment and encouraging them to trust their own. Making sure they have what they need in order to get their jobs done. Treating them not as equals in rank, but as equals in humanity (substitute whatever species here works for you). Holding them accountable when they fuck up, fairly but not too leniently, because the leader doesn’t want it to happen again.
- “Competence porn” — not in a Mary Sue-ish way (e.g., Ayla in the Clan of the Cave Bear books), but in a natural and realistic kind of way. Think of Csevet in TGE, Hange in SnK, Felix in DoL, or Seregil in Nightrunner.
- Moral greyness/ambiguity in situations and characters. My favorite characters are morally ambiguous but sympathetic overall. I also like basically good characters with rough or snarky exteriors, or at least those who have spines and who lose their tempers ever so often. I’m not so much into cartoonish villains who are into being bad for the sake of being bad, or “hard men making hard choices.” I’d rather read about evil done out of apathy, self-interest, emotional dysfunction, revenge, desperation, despair, and other all-too-human things. At the other extreme, I’m not into flawless goody-two-shoes types. Characters are like diamonds in that flaws are what make them interesting.
- Darkfic. “Grimdark" in the Warhammer 40K sense is too much. But I am fine with injury, death, and damnation where appropriate to the canon; exploration of harrowing issues so long as it's done tastefully; or even noncanonical death of a canon character if it is not gratuitous and is handled well.
- Endings that are happy, sad, or ambiguous, so long as they’re fitting for the story.
- Atmospherics. I love rich descriptions of anything, especially of nature, but also of towns and cities, clothing, food, etc. Small details are always welcome.
- Research. If you’ve got knowledge of historical details, language, etc. that’s relevant to any of these prompts, and you can work it into the fic without it feeling superfluous, please feel free to. Again, small details are always welcome. If you genuinely love doing research, do so to your heart’s content, but please do not feel obligated to bury yourself in it in order to write a story. Especially not for this exchange.
- Intricate plottiness, the machinery of politics, and political intrigue — if they fit the canon and, again, if you feel up to it.
- Magical worldbuilding, politics, and/or schools of thought.
- Tattoos, especially magical or spiritual ones. Especially but not exclusively for DoL.
- Character study.
- Love/hate relationships.
- Pining and UST.
- A little purpleness in the prose. “Purple” tends to be in the mind of the beholder anyway. If your style is stripped-down and tight, that’s fine too, but I don’t want writers to worry about using “too many” adjectives or adverbs.
What I would not like
- Character bashing or slut-shaming by the author.
- Rigid gender roles — especially for het ships. If the male char and female char have a tense relationship in canon, I’d like to see it explored. I don’t want them flattened into a cliché of champagne, roses, wedding gowns, and babies. If she’s powerful in canon, please don’t reduce her to a damsel in distress who needs rescuing.
- Silly misunderstandings that the characters could clear up with a little communication, but don’t.
- Tropes, kinks, and headcanons that I like in some fics but am not seeking in this exchange:
- AUs other than canon divergence or crossover
- Crossovers/fusions other than the ones I’ve listed
- Rule 34/gender changes
- Polyamory
- Daddy or mommy kink
- Feminization of men
- A/B/O
- Other mpreg
- Tentacles
- Public humiliation/embarrassment
- Incest
- Slavefic
- Bestiality
- Second-person narration
- Tropes, kinks, and headcanons that are hard nopes for me:
- Time loops/“Groundhog Day”
- Curtainfic
- Kidfic
- Trans or nonbinary characters
- Asexuality
- Autism
- Hardcore gore, torture, or mutilation. Floggings are about my limit, and even then I don’t want the character whipped to death or nearly to death. (Passing mentions are fine.)
- Infantilism
- Watersports, scat, or vomit play
- Eroticized pedophilia (shota/loli)
- Heavy use of epithets, such as “The taller man then leaned down and kissed the blond soldier.” Names and pronouns are usually enough.
- A great deal of exposition (that is, telling rather than showing). I realize it’s very YMMV, and sometimes you do have to tell rather than show, but I prefer fics that err on the side of showing.
What is context-dependent
- Overall I prefer third-person narration, but I’m okay with first-person for the DoL characters, since that’s how canon is written.
- Crack... unless it’s Seregil and Mildmay telling some highly improbable stories. Or the Kalliphornes boning. Then it’s fine.
- Noncon/dubcon. For the Methony/Diokletian, Armin/Annie, or Thara/Aina ship prompts, it’s fine. For the other ship prompts, please no.
- Consensual BDSM. Yes, please, for Murtagh/Felix or Kay/Felix. For other ship prompts, please no.
- Hurt/comfort. I prefer the male characters to be the ones who suffer. I’m not all that big on pure whump, but OTOH I don’t want a character to be fussed over for getting a paper cut, especially if they’re tough and stoic in canon.
- Angst, so long as it’s age- and situation-appropriate. Conflict-related angst, existential angst, depression, and even manpain are all fine, but adults acting like emo teenagers, not so much.
- Fluff. In general, a little bit goes a looooong way for me. I’d be okay with a little of it in Thara/Teru, outright fluffy Kalliphornes, or a good-natured discussion between Maia and Thamuris. Otherwise it’s not what I’m looking for.
- Xenophilia. The Kalliphornes don’t really count, because they’re of the same species. :)
- Infidelity. I don’t have a particular thing for it, but a lot of people list it as a squick. I thought I would specify that I’m okay with it, especially for Methony/Diokletian. All I ask is that the cheater realizes it’s unethical and deals with guilt at some level. I don’t like love being used as a justification for it.
- Discussion of social issues. They’re inherent in any world with human or humanoid characters, and I like it when fic addresses them in a natural way that serves both characters and plot. But I can’t read preachy issuefic — especially if it’s wildly anachronistic (e.g., use of words like “heteronormative" in a historical or quasi-historical canon). Character X stopping the action to lecture Character Y on Issue ABC is just not my bag, sorry.
- Witty banter. In general, I like the old-fashioned sort you see in Shakespeare’s comedies or comic-relief scenes, or in the work of Oscar Wilde. I am not fond of the Joss Whedon/modern-sitcom kind.
- Humor in general. I think a fic with an overall comic tone would be okay for Seregil | Mildmay, Cala | Penny, or the Kalliphornes. For the other prompts, a little humor in an otherwise serious fic is fine but I’m not seeking a humorous story per se.
Thank you for reading. I look forward to your fic! :)
My AO3 handle is Island_of_Reil.