Fandom 5K 2022 Exchange

[kitsunerei88]

Dear Creator,

Thank you for writing for me, and I hope you’re as excited to write for me as I am to read! This letter is long, but I hope not too overwhelming—I like a lot of things, and I will almost definitely like whatever you write provided you steer clear of my Hard DNWs. If there’s anything in here confusing, please don’t hesitate to contact a mod to ask about it, because chances are I just did a shit job of editing something off a template or didn’t think of something than anything else.

General

General Likes:

• Fics that are character-focused, character-driven, and deal with character exploration or character development. Show me aspects of a character I never considered before, or explorations of how a character's upbringing influences their worldview! I also especially love minor characters, particularly BIPOC characters!
• Fics as challenge, whether it be a challenge on canon, on fanon, on fandom, or a comment on our own reality. Basically, I like literary shit, don’t be afraid to go literary and write reflective shit that talks about politics.
• A focus on relationships, particularly how a character interacts with the world around them, and other characters based on their upbringing and worldview.
• Thematically, I love when characters are put in a tough spot, moral ambiguity, and themes around honour, duty, and responsibility.
• All flavours of AU. Canon-divergence, Modern AUs, Mundane AUs, crossovers, etc, especially if it interacts with one of the above. I especially like Rule 63 AUs because of the potential for exploring gender and how it impacts and socializes characters.
• Worldbuilding, especially through in-universe documents (please consider this an opt-in to pretty much whatever in-universe document or weird in-universe storytelling device you can dream up).
• Alongside the worldbuilding, I really like accuracy and real-life details. My favourite fics have included discussions of 9/11, I’ve written fic where R2P is a big deal, I suspect I’m known for my legal shit, and so—if you have specialized knowledge of something, I love seeing it!
• Romance of all varieties: fluff, happy endings, drunken confessions, friends-to-lovers, enemies-to-lovers, fake dating, fake marriage, arranged marriages, established relationships, slow-burn, shovel talk, and pining (mutual or otherwise). In general, I prefer M/F pairings, but I don’t mind M/M or F/F pairings and prefer them if canon.
• Smut-wise, I love first times, gentle sex, rough sex, possessive themes, mild BDSM (e.g. bondage, spanking with a hand), D/s with femsub, impregnation and pregnancy.

I am always open to treats!

General Dislikes:

In general, unless specifically requested, I don't tend to enjoy crack fic, soapbox fic/issuefic, amnesia fic, body swaps, cringe comedy, and plots based on miscommunication or jealousy. If there is hurt, I usually like comfort, or I often just can't get through it—same goes for angst (unless explicitly requested, of course). That said, these are general dislikes—they're not DNWs, I have liked fics with all these, and I have sometimes requested these things. If you have an idea that you’re worried might come close to one of these, don’t worry and go for it.

Hard DNWs:

Please note that these are my general hard DNWs. In some cases, there may be sections where some (or all!) of them won't apply, and in that case follow what was in the sign up.

• Character bashing. In general, I like to imagine that all characters are like people—they're complex, and they have an array of good points and bad points.
• Harm or death to pregnant women, children or small animals (background mentions or past references is fine, as are things like statistics—I just don’t want to be dragged through it in detail, like please don’t make this a central point of the fic).
• Except otherwise indicated, non-canonical major character death, graphic violence and torture (graphic being “more than what is in canon”), non-con or dub-con, PWP or large age differences (>15)
• Adultery or infidelity (specifically, this is mostly about the betrayal--if you have a plot where two people are married for convenience and happen to have other relationships, that wouldn't trigger as long as everyone knows and doesn't care)
• Smut-wise, unless it’s indicated above in my likes, I’m likely not going to appreciate anything kinky. To be more specific, I DNW A/B/O, age play, humiliation, bloodplay, cannibalism or vore, watersports, scat, mpreg, snuff, or underage (<15).

Harry Potter

I have a few favourite tropes and kinds of fics for this, which come up all the time:

• Rule 63 is amazing for this fandom, because gender issues are sort of rife throughout the novels. Even in the more progressive areas, we can see that JKR hugely valorises motherhood (see: Molly Weasley), that she disrespects women who are openly feminine (see: treatment of Cho Chang and Fleur Delacour), and then there’s JKR’s comments on trans-persons.... There’s just so much to work with when you mess around with gender in this universe, and I love it.
• War: Look, if you are one of those Massive Nerds Like Me who know a lot about law, terrorism, international relations, insurgency, counter-insurgency, or actual politics (looking at all you lawyers, polisci geeks, international relations grads, ex-military, Hoya alumni, anyone who hangs out on acoup.blog…), you know without me telling you that quite a lot of the actual war and post-war piece doesn’t make sense. I would love if you took a perspective that made the war realistic.
• Post-War and Redemption: Running a bit along the lines of the above, war is messy. Character relationships post-war are going to be equally messy! I love watching characters develop from the people they had to be during a hopefully realistic war and re-adapting to peaceful society—regardless of whether they were on the side of right or wrong. In order words, please, give me some realistic war trauma for some characters to work through.
• Worldbuilding: I’ll take pretty much anything for worldbuilding because there are So Many Questions and So Many Unsatisfactory Answers. High society pureblood culture is a good example, because while fanon often interprets this as aristocracy-like with arranged marriages and so on, I’m less convinced that is actually the case (or... make a case for it for me). Other options include the inner workings of the Ministry of Magic, international relations, relations with Muggles if any, how does the Statute of Secrecy Work…?

Draco Malfoy

Draco has literally so much promise. He is who he is because he is a product of his upbringing, and the world he thought he knew shifts so completely under him during the course of canon. Tons of material to work with here on multiple fronts, plus all the gender mess that I love. Some prompts:

• Draco was a child when he joined the Death Eaters. I'd love to see him in the immediate post-war. How does his trial go? How do his friends treat him, when he once thought he would be a hero, and now he's possibly a criminal? Is he tried at all? How does he come to terms with what he's done? Yes, I've read a ton of Draco post-war redemption arcs, and I still want more.
• Rule 63! Draco Malfoy is from a conservative, pureblood family, which means that a F!Draco Malfoy was probably raised very, very differently than her canon counterpart. How does that play out? Is she highly feminine and has she ever played Quidditch (there is one mention in PS that the Slytherin Quidditch Team is all boys)? Is she intent on making a good match for her family?
• Better yet, on a Rule 63, I’d love to see how Voldemort victimizes F!Draco as opposed to Draco. Since Bellatrix is essentially Voldemort’s right-hand woman, it’s clear that Voldemort doesn’t necessarily treat women differently from men, but at the same time the majority of his followers do tend to be men and Voldemort was raised in a more conservative time himself. Does Voldemort still force F!Draco into trying to kill Dumbledore or does he punish her in the stead of her family in other ways? (note: if you decide to do this, my non-con, dub-con, graphic violence, torture, large age differences, and major character death DNWs are suspended.)
• What if Draco Malfoy was a trans woman? That’s just… the entire plot, actually. Would love to see this realization at Hogwarts in the context of the war, with Pansy as an ally.

Tom Riddle

I’m really not very convinced with the canonical explanation for why Tom Riddle became Voldemort. JKR says that he is incapable of love because he was conceived under a Love Potion and not real love, but this reeks of Too Much Simplicity and Not Enough Realism to me. I’d love an in-depth exploration of how Tom Riddle became Voldemort, and why? (This is a request where my non-con, dub-con, graphic violence, torture, large age differences and major character death DNWs are suspended).

• What was his past like? We know he was in an orphanage, and it was sombre, but I don’t think that’s necessarily enough to turn him into a power-hungry sociopath. Alternatively, how does he work this at Hogwarts, or in his post-schooling quest for power?
• Without his followers, Tom Riddle would have just been a terrorist. How does he draw followers? Power is one aspect, sure—but Tom Riddle didn’t just attract bottom-feeders, he attracted people who were already powerful and with money. So, why are they attracted to him? Why are they risking their power, their wealth, their status in society for him, and in large enough numbers to terrorize a nation? I’d love if you drew on real life elements in post-WW2 Britain or developed widespread political and cultural concerns to really give this life.
• RULE 63: Voldemort was born and raised in an earlier time, probably WW2 or thereabouts. How does a F!Tom Riddle handle the world? How does she deal with Horace Slughorn, how does she gain followers, and what does her path to conquest look like compared to Voldemort’s?

Dudley Dursley

I think Dudley has a lot of promise. He was raised in a certain way, to believe that it was okay to abuse Harry, and towards the end we see him starting to change his views by leaving tea at Harry’s door. Dudley and Harry could have been siblings, and they weren’t—or, maybe, they still were because families do sometimes play favourites like this (abusive families, yeah, but they exist). Some prompts:

• What happened with Dudley? What brought about the change—was there anything? One of my favourite fics is Celebony’s A Hero, so I’d love to see something prompt Dudley into seeing the abuse around him. What does he do from there?
• What happens after the war? The Dursleys go into hiding for the war—that had to have left an impact on Dudley. Where does he go from there, does he reconnect with Harry afterwards? What’s their relationship like after that?

I’d really love to see Dudley’s growth and change, and I’d love to see Harry and Dudley coming to terms with their past and with each other—I’d love their previously combative relationship to evolve into one of mutual respect and brotherhood. They did grow up together, and they know each other in a way that pretty much no one else ever will, and they lived Harry’s abuse (and Dudley’s pampering) together. Make them friends!

Petunia Evans Dursley

Let’s talk about Petunia. I’m not entirely sure I like her story arc in the books, and while I find it not unrealistic, I also find it simplistic. Two of my favourite fics are Petunia-centred: Deco’s By Baker Street Station, I Sat Down And Wept, and dwellingondreams’ in the language of flowers. Suffice it to say, I’m definitely looking for an AU here that really works out Petunia’s character differently.

• So, Petunia doesn’t have magic. There are so many ways she can react to that, and to her parents’ obvious favouring of Lily, but let’s say she reacts differently. I’d love something that took that background and had her become a successful woman in her own right instead of just forever salty. For example, maybe if Petunia was significantly older, it would have had much less of an impact—or maybe, Petunia is genderswapped, and M!Petunia doesn’t care about magic because he’s a man in the 1960s/1970s and he’s going to college anyway. What would that mean for his relationship with Harry?
• AUs where Petunia is also magical would be interesting! I’d love either a story where both Petunia and Lily are magical, or where Petunia has magic and Lily doesn’t.
• Petunia takes the kids and leaves Vernon because Vernon is abusive. Now what?

Really, I just want an AU where Petunia is a good parent and a reasonable and responsible adult who doesn’t take her teenage anger out on a child, please.

Cho Chang, Cho Chang/Blaise Zabini

Cho Chang holds a special place in my heart because when I was a kid in 1996, she was like the only character I saw in literature that looked like me. Was she a particularly good example of diversity? Not really—but that’s something that can be fixed.

I want fic where Cho is believably Asian, instead of being a token or swapping out her skin colour. I want to see magical immigrant communities, and I want to see her cultural context having an impact on her and being a core part of her identity. As a person of colour, the thing about it is that it’s an identity you can never escape—to a certain subset of the population, you will always be Other no matter how long ago you arrived in your country, and there’s nothing you can say about it. For Cho, what does it mean to be Asian? What’s her family’s story? What shade of Asian or diaspora is she—is she Korean? Part-Japanese? If she’s Chinese, is she a 1.5gen HKer whose parents moved to Britain in anticipating the handover, or were her parents intellectuals fleeing from the Cultural Revolution, is she benshengren Taiwanese, or is she Huaqiao of the shade whose grandparents or earlier left and settled somewhere like Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam? Tell me more about Cho, her family, and her outlook on life!

I was recently really captured by the pairing of Cho and Blaise because there’s so much thematic promise in them! They’re both non-white characters—Cho is Asian, while Blaise is unspecified Not White (more likely Italian not-white rather than Black, because being Italian is apparently not white in Brtain), and that opens such a huge can of Immigrant Identity Worms. How often do they need to respond to questions like “so where are you from?” Do they belong to Britain—do people look at them and think that they are British? What are their perspectives of the war—or, how does Voldemort and his followers view them? What about after the war?

I basically love stories centred around identity and belonging, especially immigrant identity and belonging, and I think Cho and Blaise provide a really amazing platform to talk about identity and affiliation and all of that!


Tortall

Yukimi no Daiomoru/Nealan of Queenscove

If I have an OTP, it may be this pairing. I love Neal as a character because he’s got so much going on behind him—he’s the oldest page in years, and reading between the lines, it’s clear that he entered knight-training because his two elder brothers died and left him as the heir to the duchy. He occupies a position of high privilege, being heir to a duchy, and he isn’t afraid to wield that authority if it suits him. He’s also funny, and he’s self-deprecating—in short, he’s complicated, and I love complicated characters.

And there’s Yuki, and everything we know about Yuki can be summed up in a few sentences. She’s Yamani, one of Princess Shinkokami’s closest friends; she’s from the noh Daiomoru house, which is one of the oldest and most prestigious houses in the Yamani Isles. She’s a mage, because she goes to the Midwinter mages party. She’s “plump and peppery”, and she can wield the shukusen and naginata, and the bow. She joins the Queen’s Riders.

And somewhere in Squire, Neal and Yuki have a whole romance that culminates in their engagement at the end of his Order that we just don’t see. It’s aggravating enough that I have written their romance three separate times (in Unwilling, call me a fool, and two swallows) and it’s not enough, damn it.

So please: write me an intense Neal/Yuki romance. Make it full of chivalric courtly love, make it a full medieval-style courtship, give me a dreamy medieval romance where they’re both conscious of their status and there are chaperones and sneaking hand-holding, let alone a kiss, is a big fucking deal. Fill it with wistful, yearning vibes, and all the pining. All the dramatic, angsty pining, especially when Neal goes off to war.

Or: blow up the sparks and give me their first night together. Are they shy? Established-relationship fic also works for me—give me Yuki’s first visit to Queenscove! Pregnancy and kidfic are also wonderful, and certainly in Neal and Yuki’s future since he is the heir to the duchy, and I’d love to see them being deeply in love around their first pregnancy and child.

Or: screw the rest of that, Modern AU would also be excellent. Is Neal a rising fencing star struggling to balance his tournament schedule with the demands of medical school? What about his brothers in this case; are they setting the standard for him, having both gone to the Olympics? What about Yuki—is she an international student recruited for her own skill with the blade or other athletic skill? How do they meet, and how do sparks fly? Though, if you do this, while I’m very partial to fencing, that’s because I actually fence, so… unless you also fence, it might be easier if you just picked hockey. Or rugby. Or another sport on the violent end that I know absolutely nothing about because fencing culture is special.

Veralidaine Sarrasri/Numair Salmalin

If Neal and Yuki are not my OTP, then it’s probably Numair and Daine. Despite their age difference, I think they work in a way that neither of them could work with anyone else. Numair is one of the most powerful mages in the world, which sets him in a class apart; Daine is half-divine and also one of the most powerful mages in the world. Both of them are slightly terrifying to everyone else around them. They can understand each other in a way that no one else can, and I love that for them. And I also love the fact that their age difference causes conflict.

I’d love more on their romance! Unlike many of the others, theirs plays out more or less within The Immortals, but I want more. Tell me about when Numair realizes his feelings; we know that six months before they end up in the Realms of the Gods, Daine has unicorn fever and is delirious and he swipes a bit of hair for his locket. What was his thought process there? Or, tell me about the immediate aftermath of the Immortals War—outside the desperation there, how do they find their place together? When does Daine move into Numair’s rooms in the Palace, and when does she finally agree to marry him and why? Smut is also fine, though for Tortall in general, I prefer first-times and gentle sex.

Or: Modern AUs for these two are also fun, because they really blow up the age difference issue since, well, a 14-year age gap might not have actually been that startling in the time period of Tortall, but today it certainly is. I love having this set on a university campus too, because it works for these two so well because they are dorks, and I also loved my university years. So set Numair the biology grad student/professor against Daine, the precocious freshman, and all the drama!

Saraiyu Balitang/Zaimid Hetnim

This is another canon pairing where apparently a whole romance happened behind the scenes of canon and culminated in Sarai basically eloping with Zaimid to Carthak. I would love to see this in detail.

We know that Sarai is beautiful and passionate and loving—and really not political enough to be queen. We know that injustice rankles her, and I like to think she’s bright enough that she knows very damn well what’s happening with the rebels wanting to put her on the throne. I like to think she knows very well they want that, and that she doesn’t want it, because it’s a terrible place to be. As for Zaimid, we know that he’s kind, and he’s a Healer.

So: how do they get together? How do they manage to plan an elopement right under the noses of everyone, including Aly? How do they actually pull it off (honestly, the fact that Sarai plays a ditz, drives Aly nuts so she just packs all the clothes and so on is amazing)? I just want more on these two, please!

Alexander of Tirragen

If the last requests have all been about the romance, the next prompts are mostly about war. I’d really love more on Alexander of Tirragen—why does he join up with Duke Roger? How does Duke Roger persuade him that he would be a better king than Jonathan, Alex’s childhood friend? Is there something that Alex wants, or are there serious and deep-seated problems in King Roald’s Tortall that he doesn’t feel Jonathan will address that he believes Duke Roger will address? Tell me more about him.

I’d be very down for fix-it fic for Alex, too! In terms of ships, I’m not too picky, but I like Alex/Thom and am intrigued by Alex/Delia.

Roger of Conte

This is another one where I’m deeply interested in what’s going on behind the scenes of this era of Tortall. Duke Roger wants the throne of Tortall, fine. But why, and how does he obtain followers? Specifically, how does he turn Alex of Tirragen, who has close ties to Jonathan as prince? Sure, being power-hungry is an answer for some of them, but are there wide-ranging social and political issues causing divides that Duke Roger can use? Is Roald actually an awful king?

(Textually, we can read between the lines to establish that Roald is in fact an awful king. He shows no interest in the affairs of state, seriously considers returning half the Drell Valley back to Tusaine instead of fighting a defensive war, and he kills himself after the death of Lianne. He’s blinded to Roger’s motivations and lets others do the thinking for him. Also, there were nightly feasts during this era of Tortall, like nightly goddamn feasts, because Alanna is tasked with serving Sir Myles every night; and then, there’s Myles’ own disreputable reputation through this period. How is Sir Myles the court drunk during Roald’s era, and yet a trusted advisor in Jonathan’s? Because King Roald doesn’t like or trust his advice, that’s why, and Myles the historian despairs of Roald’s Tortall, leading him to. OK, rant over.)

Finally, this is yet another interesting one to Rule 63 because, if Roger is female, how does she go about her plans of taking the throne differently? How does she go about attracting followers? I’d love an alliance with Jonathan on this if Roald is a bad king—or not.


Romances of Arquitaine

This is my pipe dream fandom, I can’t even match on this in Yuletide, but I am determined.

How do I even begin describing my love of this series? It tickles so my id so hard, from concept to characterization to world-building. To begin, there is Vianne di Rocancheil: hedgewitch, bookworm, and lady-in-waiting to Princesse Lisele d’Arquitaine. She’s also a royal byblow, but that doesn’t matter until it does, because there’s a coup that murders both the King and the Princesse.

Then, there’s Tristan D’Arcenne: the Captain of the King’s Guard, Left Hand of the King, desperately in love with Vianne and who might have betrayed and killed the King because the King wouldn’t let him court Vianne. With the coup, Vianne is now the Queen, if throneless, and Tristan must now attempt unseat the king that he might have helped put on the throne. Without letting Vianne know that he might have been involved in the murder of the last King and Princesse, of course.

Vianne di Rocancheil/Tristan d’Arcenne

I love the characterization of Vianne, especially in The Hedgewitch Queen. As she said herself, she was specifically raised to be without ambition, and those lessons took. What I love the most about her is that she is exactly what one would expect of a lady-in-waiting to the Princesse—she’s intensely loyal to her Princesse, she has no idea what she’s doing, the whole point of her life thus far was the glittering Court social scene. She has no practical skills, and she’s thrown into the deep end with no skills to survive it. And on the other hand, there’s Tristan, who is deeply in love with Vianne—and who was involved in killing the people she loved and who helped put her in this impossible situation.

So, onto my prompts!

• Canon divergence AU! I would love to see what would have happened if King Henri had realized that the price of Tristan’s loyalty was Vianne and given her to him. A straight-up arranged marriage fic would be great (in fact I got one as a raffle prize last year and it was wonderful!), but I’m especially interested in seeing what would happen with the coup if Tristan hadn’t betrayed the King and Princesse. What would Vianne’s life have looked like then?
• Another Canon Divergence idea—what if the coup went off exactly as Tristan planned? What if Vianne found herself on a one-way boat trip to Tiberia? I can’t imagine Vianne would have been very happy about this turn of events, but does she try to go back?
• I’d also love a deeper exploration of Tristan’s thoughts and feelings throughout The Hedgewitch Queen, particularly his balance between wanting Vianne for his own and having to put her on the throne. Alternatively, I’d love more from Vianne’s perspective on her betrayal in The Bandit King when she realizes that Tristan murdered the King. If you’re comfortable writing sex, I’d be happy with PWP/explicit sex—please note here that noncon and dubcon is fine. Canonically there’s a dubcon scene in The Bandit King anyway, Tristan is an insane stalkerish lover who crosses All The Boundaries and I am completely into it.
• The ending of the books leaves off with Vianne having abdicated the throne and running off to join the gypsies, and Tristan tracking her down (see: insane stalkerish lover). There’s an implication of reconciliation—what happened here? Has Vianne forgiven him, and where do they go from here?

For this request, I am fine with non-canonical major character deaths (kill Tristan or Vianne or both if you feel like the plot needs it), graphic torture and violence (it’s a war story and I like my wars disgusting), PWP, and non-con/dub-con (look, Tristan murdered a King over her and already kind-of-maybe raped her in The Bandit King, why wouldn’t he do it again?).

Lisele d’Arquitaine

I admit I didn’t think much of Lisele until I got the arranged marriage fic last year but really: who was Lisele? On one hand, you have Vianne’s perspective, which is that Lisele was airheaded and needed her to look out for her; on the other, you have Lisele’s single action in all of The Hedgewitch Queen, which is to protect the Seal of Arquitaine and then entrust it to Vianne, which seems to act at odds with her described character.

So: more about Lisele, please! It can be canon-compliant, from before the events of the series, or I’d love an AU where she lived and took Vianne’s role, possibly because Vianne died for her or something (oh man, her problems with Tristan would be immense, but I somehow think she’d be better equipped to do it). Any AU where Lisele lives would be interesting, whether it be because the coup never went off, the coup failed, or any other way. I’d like to see her as Queen!


Fangirl

Okay, this book is one of my absolute favourite comfort reads. I love Cath—I related so hard to Cath, from the massive anxiety to having a fic that became big in its fandom and dealing with those stressors, plus the whole setting of getting used to college. I even loved the setting, with references to rural Nebraska and the snowstorm scene in the middle and Cath the urbanite in Omaha and Lincoln. This book spoke so hard to me, like so hard, and I’d love if you took something from it and gave me more.

I would love pretty much anything light and fluffy. For Cath/Levi, I (obviously) really, really liked the scene in the book where he's driving her home through a snowstorm, and I love snow and hot chocolate and all the things. I'd love a fluffy warm cabin scene with them! Also, as someone who hails from the great frozen north, I also just liked the realistic portrayal of the terrors of driving in a winter storm. Fear is when you know the wheels of the truck are no longer touching the road.

For Levi & Reagan, I just love their dynamic--they dated once, but they've moved on past that to be friends. I'd love a scene with them highlighting where they are now and their comfort with each other that doesn't emphasize their (obviously dramatic) past. Maybe Reagan talking to Levi about the clear and obvious crush he has on Cath?

I’d love if you threw both of these things together, too—maybe a retelling of their getting together from Levi’s perspective? Alternatively, I love all the warm fuzzy tropes for this. Snowed in together in a cabin would be great!


Original Works

Sweet princess a little scared of her new bodyguard/Severe but secretly kind bodyguard (F/M), Stoic underclassman who isn't over her high school crush/the upperclassman she crushed on (F/M)

For these two, I’d love something really sweet and tropey, honestly. Something like, so sweet and fluffy that it rots my teeth. For the princess and the bodyguard, I’d love some snowed in together action, or forbidden love tropes with all the pining. For the students, I love friends-to-lovers, enemies-to-lovers, oh hey I noticed you’re cute, or even like a second chance years later in college.

I’m totally down with smut in this request, preferably smut with feelings.

Woman Who Just Gave Birth/Delivery Room Doctors and Staff (OW)

No plot, just porn, thanks. Non-con is totally welcome for this, especially under the guise of providing medical care. Love all the ways we can get fingering in here under plausible medical scenarios, and all the medical kink, really.

I hope you enjoy writing!