Dear Writer (Candyhearts Exchange 2024)
Jan. 2nd, 2024 02:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hekaterasHello dear Candyhearts writer or artist! Welcome to my letter. :3
AO3 username: Hekateras
General likes
Slice-of-life, hurt/comfort, humour and banter, understated whump (physical and/or emotional), characters being in danger, dysfunctional found family dynamics, confusing polyamory.
General DNWs
Explicit sex, noncon, kidfic, Omegaverse, scat, excessive medical details, pregnancy, genderbending, cold war AUs, whump that is too focused on victimisation, trans or nonbinary headcanons that include medical details (specifically mentions of needles or surgery), deliberately cracky headcanons
Treats are welcome. Assignments fulfilled as art are also welcome where specified in the signup. I have no specific art prompts but the above likes and DNWs apply to them as well, you can't really go wrong then.
On to the requests!
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Request #1
Fandom: Invisible Inc (Videogame) (Invisible Inc lore reference post slash fandom promo)
Fandom-specific DNWs:
Tony/Sharp being written as outright abusive or toxic (a bit weird/unhealthy/dysfunctional is ok, "ohoho he's so DANGEROUS and that's sexy" is okay also)
I do like crossovers, fusions, and AUs, and am not opposed to "mundane" AUs on principle, but II is one of those settings where a lot of who the characters are as people is wrapped up in that specific corporate dystopian, recently post-war setting, and drastic changes in setting should ideally be cognisant of that.
Relationships:
Brian Decker/Tony Xu: I would absolutely love something for this ship. The grumpy ex-corporate-security guy perpetually cosplaying a noir detective and his smartass tech-savvy but more field-inexperienced coworker; sometimes they risk their lives together. It's almost a James Bond/Q dynamic, if Bond were a perpetually recovering and likely suicidal alcoholic and Q were also a field agent. I don't have a ship manifesto but I have a LOT of writing on AO3 for these two if you wanna know more. What I love about this ship is that these two are drastically different people with seemingly almost nothing in common - except, of course, their hatred or disdain for the corporations that have made their lives hell, and the pain caused by that, even if their coping mechanisms were extremely different. It's interesting to see these two overcoming the fronts they put up and their assumptions about each other. I also headcanon Tony as grey-ace and would enjoy seeing that explored more, in this or other ships.
Alex "Sharp" McTeague/Tony Xu: These two have known each other for 20+ years and presumably met while doing research. They have a lot of history together, and their banters are full of petty rivalry and and frenemy-like behaviour, but could there be more to it? Sources say yes. What I love about these two is the idea that they were both highly-neurodivergent misfits in their environment who did not have a particularly smooth relationship but still found a connection with each other they haven't had with anyone else. Or, to be brief, they're both Weird Nerds. Sharp is a scary but also deeply comical character, and I find fics with him tend to work best when they reflect that and don't take him too seriously. Given Sharp's whole thing, you are also welcome to go crazy with transhumanist themes.
Derek "Monst3r" Mossman & Collette "Rush" Phan, Derek "Monst3r" Mossman / Collette "Rush" Phan: I would love to see these two and their relationship explored more, whether platonic or romantic. They met while working for the PEIA during the Resource Wars; their personalities probably clashed a lot. However it went, it all ended with Rush's capture and public execution after the failed Istanbul Run mission in 2057. One obvious angsty prompt idea would be Derek watching said execution. Or, seventeen years later, does he still carry that grief with him?
Nika Muratova & Tony Xu: Another "opposites attract" kind of relationship. They have very fun banters and diametrically opposed skills/talents. I headcanon both of them as more or less exclusively same-gender-attracted, so I don't ship it (anymore), but a closer look at an odd friendship between these two would be extremely fun. Also, check out this loading screen art!!! Those are the vibes!
Prism / Shalem 11: Shalem is a celebrity assassin, Prism is a celebrity actress. Both of them ended up at Invisible Inc., working to destroy the corporations. A common fan interpretation is the idea that they both see through each other's facades in a way nobody else really does - they may be from completely different trades, but they are cut from the same cloth in a sense. Reading material in order of importance: Celebrities by specialC, Prism arc series by Linenpixel, 44 by specialC.
Banks & Tony Xu: I wrote a fic where these two work a heist together and was startled at how good their chemistry is. More of that, please, whether it's them getting into more pre-canon hijincks together, or canon-era and post-canon, when Banks is dealing with her brain damage issues, the weight of the HQ raid, and the pressure of the campaign. They're from very different walks of life but what they have in common is that they're probably the more harmless of the agency's roster, not exactly combat powerhouses. I really like the idea that these two are the campaign starting agents and had to rally to rescue the more overt badasses from detention.
Derek "Monst3r" Mossman & Olivia "Central" Gladstone: This is probably the most prominent canonical relationship in the game - old friends that have PEIA-era history together before they went their separate ways. Central started a new agency while Derek assumed the new name of Monst3r and became a private information broker/black market merchant/etc etc. But at the end of the day he's still loyal to her.
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Request #2
Fandom: Betrayal at Krondor (Videogame) (In-game text reference site)
Fandom-specific DNWs: Modern AUs
Relationships:
Any in the tagset
I would love to see more Gorath & Owyn interaction as they get to know and trust each other better, but any other of the tagset relationships is fine to explore to. Gorath and his (ex?) wife? Gorath and Jimmy or the other Kingdom-affiliated characters that don't quite trust him? Etc. Post-canon musings by other characters on The Ending (cough)? Bring it on. Also, I don't mind if you write Gorath & Owyn in a way that's a bit slashy, even though I only nominated the & tag for this. I would just prefer for it to not be the focus, because frankly I have a hard time reconciling it with their differences (specifically the fact that Owyn is a 19-year-old human and Gorath is several centuries old and getting up there in years even for a dark elf, I can't really imagine him seeing Owyn in that light. Although if you feel like you can handle that in an interesting or convincing way, by all means be my guest!)
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Request #3
Fandom: Firefly
Fandom-specific DNWs: Canon-typical homophobia being treated as nonexistent, Mal and Simon falling into a neat dommy/subby binary as many interpretations of this ship tend to do. The events of Serenity the movie being treated as canon if we're being honest.
Relationships:
Malcolm Reynolds / Simon Tam
Malcolm Reynolds & Simon Tam
Malcolm Reynolds / Inara Serra / Simon Tam
I rewatched the show a few years back and this ship got me good. Whether you want to write it as more leaning towards slash or pre-slash or more platonic is fine by me, but hear me out. Mal and Simon are two sides of the same coin, and most of their tension and bickering in the show are the result of both trying to protect their Designated Protected Person(s) and not knowing if the other is a threat to that or not. Some of the driving force of the show is Mal trying to decide if Simon and River are crew or a threat to his crew. I think a lot of Firefly fans who aren't obsessed with Simal miss is that Simon is so very angry, and in a way he represents a younger, more idealistic version of Mal who's still new to the injustices of the world and is still early in the process of being embittered by it.
At the same time, god, if Inara is Mal's type, then Simon so obviously is too. Pretty-faced high-society educated person who keeps talking back at him, and is a fish out of water but takes to the criminal lifestyle somewhat better than expected? Hell yes. Mal and Simon struggling with their difference in rank and roles as captain and medic and the potential danger in not keeping things distant and professional? Hell yes. Mal struggling with the fact that he's into both of them (feel free to sprinkle this with some internalised biphobia if you like)? Hell yes.
I also love me some (realistically) BAMF!Simon and Simon getting the opportunity to shine in situations that play to his strengths (like the entirety of the Ariel episode). I also read him as fairly closeted and likely not having been really free to explore his same-sex attraction in his previous life on Osiris, with the pressure to be respectable and reflect well on his family. His canonical flirting with Kaylee is meant to show him as awkward, but honestly to me it just reads like a closeted gay guy who's desperately trying to fake it till he makes it because things would be SO much easier if he were just attracted to the pretty girl mechanic who's super into him.
You are welcome to keep this in understated UST territory, I'm a sucker for that.
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Request #4
Fandom: Live a Live (Videogame)
Fandom-specific DNWs: None
Relationships:
Mad Dog & Sundown Kid
Mad Dog / Sundown Kid
I'm really intrigued by these two and their opposing worldviews - Mad Dog seems to practically hail from an era of chivalry, he holds views about death and violence that are distinctly old-fashioned and Romantic (in the generic sense of the word). Sundown Kid seems far more pragmatic. I would like to see Mad Dog grapple with the fact that Sundown keeps showing him mercy, again and again, even as he considers it to be an insult. I would like to see Sundown face the idea of getting attached to someone, after he lost the last things he loved so violently.
A friend and I have also toyed with the idea of a modern or even post-modern (vaguely post-apocalyptic?) AU for this. It would be challenging to pick a more modern setting that still allows for the core Western themes and the dynamic between the characters, but hardly impossible, and could be quite fun. Definitely works better in a post-apoc setting.
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Request #5
Fandom: Detroit: Become Human (Videogame)
Fandom-specific DNWs: None
Relationships:
Hank Anderson & Connor
There is one specific thing I would love explored here, and that is Hank coming to terms with Connor's sentience. In the game, he's obviously very emotionally affected by Connor's human-like behaviour, in part because he's still mourning his son, but what about the intellectual side of that? What does Hank think every time Connor disobeys an order, or does meaningless little things like stare at himself in the mirror for just too long? Does Hank wonder what Connor is thinking, what's going on in that computer brain of his? I assume the multiple mirror scenes in the game are a reference to the mirror self-recognition test, which is reasonably common knowledge enough that Hank might be aware of it. At what point does he realise Connor is, or is at least in the process of becoming, something far more than a machine?
On the whumpier and related side, here's a specific prompt I would absolutely love to see written: Hank reacting to Connor's interrogation of the three androids in the Public Enemy chapter turned scrabbling fight for his life while calling Hank for help. In the game, the canonical path is Connor being a BAMF and powering through it to take down the escaping deviant, and we never see Hank's reaction to his injuries or near-death experience (unless the timer runs out and Connor dies). I would love to see this rectified. Maybe after the incident, Connor crashes and has to get repaired while Hank accesses his feed recording to understand what the hell went so wrong there. I love the idea of Hank coming to face the fact that this "machine" was acting just as desperate not to die as any living thing, and called for his help, and while he probably could rationalise it as pure calculation, it would not be easy, and would probably shake him up quite a bit.
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Request #6
Fandom: Order of the Stick
Fandom-specific DNWs: None
Relationships:
Belkar Bitterleaf & Vaarsuvius
Belkar Bitterleaf / Vaarsuvius
Requesting both / and & because as far as I can see, some weird mix of the two is canonical for them. I would love something set closer to the current point in canon that explores, through the lens of their once-animosity and confusing (at least one-sided) UST, how these two have changed as people over the course of the story. There's so much potential here
If you want to take it in a more shippy direction, that's fine too, but I would prefer it be done in a way that is cognisant of all the various obstacles to making it work - V's messy divorce, Belkar's... everything, their personal very messy history of antagonism together that only gradually petered out into more or less having each other's back, etc.
If you have a fun canon divergent idea (e.g. "What if Belkar had gotten stuck on the ship with Vaarsuvius rather than out with Haley and Celia?"), that's great too!
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Request #7
Fandom: Neverwinter Nights
Fandom-specific DNWs: None
Relationships:
Knight-Captain / Gannayev
Knight-Captain & Safiya
Knight-Captain & Okku
I would love some MotB-era exploration of one or more of these relationships against the backdrop of the KC recovering from the shitshow that was the war against the King of Shadows, only to be thrust into a new struggle for their life. Some more overt tragedy or bad endings welcome for this fandom.
In my campaign, the KC was a female tiefling so I'm pretty partial to that. But you can go with whatever tickles your fancy. I do really like the idea of an 'othered' KC who's of a race that is more ostracised, it makes for good "ragtag band of misfits" vibes with their companions.
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AO3 username: Hekateras
General likes
Slice-of-life, hurt/comfort, humour and banter, understated whump (physical and/or emotional), characters being in danger, dysfunctional found family dynamics, confusing polyamory.
General DNWs
Explicit sex, noncon, kidfic, Omegaverse, scat, excessive medical details, pregnancy, genderbending, cold war AUs, whump that is too focused on victimisation, trans or nonbinary headcanons that include medical details (specifically mentions of needles or surgery), deliberately cracky headcanons
Treats are welcome. Assignments fulfilled as art are also welcome where specified in the signup. I have no specific art prompts but the above likes and DNWs apply to them as well, you can't really go wrong then.
On to the requests!
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Request #1
Fandom: Invisible Inc (Videogame) (Invisible Inc lore reference post slash fandom promo)
Fandom-specific DNWs:
Tony/Sharp being written as outright abusive or toxic (a bit weird/unhealthy/dysfunctional is ok, "ohoho he's so DANGEROUS and that's sexy" is okay also)
I do like crossovers, fusions, and AUs, and am not opposed to "mundane" AUs on principle, but II is one of those settings where a lot of who the characters are as people is wrapped up in that specific corporate dystopian, recently post-war setting, and drastic changes in setting should ideally be cognisant of that.
Relationships:
Brian Decker/Tony Xu: I would absolutely love something for this ship. The grumpy ex-corporate-security guy perpetually cosplaying a noir detective and his smartass tech-savvy but more field-inexperienced coworker; sometimes they risk their lives together. It's almost a James Bond/Q dynamic, if Bond were a perpetually recovering and likely suicidal alcoholic and Q were also a field agent. I don't have a ship manifesto but I have a LOT of writing on AO3 for these two if you wanna know more. What I love about this ship is that these two are drastically different people with seemingly almost nothing in common - except, of course, their hatred or disdain for the corporations that have made their lives hell, and the pain caused by that, even if their coping mechanisms were extremely different. It's interesting to see these two overcoming the fronts they put up and their assumptions about each other. I also headcanon Tony as grey-ace and would enjoy seeing that explored more, in this or other ships.
Alex "Sharp" McTeague/Tony Xu: These two have known each other for 20+ years and presumably met while doing research. They have a lot of history together, and their banters are full of petty rivalry and and frenemy-like behaviour, but could there be more to it? Sources say yes. What I love about these two is the idea that they were both highly-neurodivergent misfits in their environment who did not have a particularly smooth relationship but still found a connection with each other they haven't had with anyone else. Or, to be brief, they're both Weird Nerds. Sharp is a scary but also deeply comical character, and I find fics with him tend to work best when they reflect that and don't take him too seriously. Given Sharp's whole thing, you are also welcome to go crazy with transhumanist themes.
Derek "Monst3r" Mossman & Collette "Rush" Phan, Derek "Monst3r" Mossman / Collette "Rush" Phan: I would love to see these two and their relationship explored more, whether platonic or romantic. They met while working for the PEIA during the Resource Wars; their personalities probably clashed a lot. However it went, it all ended with Rush's capture and public execution after the failed Istanbul Run mission in 2057. One obvious angsty prompt idea would be Derek watching said execution. Or, seventeen years later, does he still carry that grief with him?
Nika Muratova & Tony Xu: Another "opposites attract" kind of relationship. They have very fun banters and diametrically opposed skills/talents. I headcanon both of them as more or less exclusively same-gender-attracted, so I don't ship it (anymore), but a closer look at an odd friendship between these two would be extremely fun. Also, check out this loading screen art!!! Those are the vibes!
Prism / Shalem 11: Shalem is a celebrity assassin, Prism is a celebrity actress. Both of them ended up at Invisible Inc., working to destroy the corporations. A common fan interpretation is the idea that they both see through each other's facades in a way nobody else really does - they may be from completely different trades, but they are cut from the same cloth in a sense. Reading material in order of importance: Celebrities by specialC, Prism arc series by Linenpixel, 44 by specialC.
Banks & Tony Xu: I wrote a fic where these two work a heist together and was startled at how good their chemistry is. More of that, please, whether it's them getting into more pre-canon hijincks together, or canon-era and post-canon, when Banks is dealing with her brain damage issues, the weight of the HQ raid, and the pressure of the campaign. They're from very different walks of life but what they have in common is that they're probably the more harmless of the agency's roster, not exactly combat powerhouses. I really like the idea that these two are the campaign starting agents and had to rally to rescue the more overt badasses from detention.
Derek "Monst3r" Mossman & Olivia "Central" Gladstone: This is probably the most prominent canonical relationship in the game - old friends that have PEIA-era history together before they went their separate ways. Central started a new agency while Derek assumed the new name of Monst3r and became a private information broker/black market merchant/etc etc. But at the end of the day he's still loyal to her.
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Request #2
Fandom: Betrayal at Krondor (Videogame) (In-game text reference site)
Fandom-specific DNWs: Modern AUs
Relationships:
Any in the tagset
I would love to see more Gorath & Owyn interaction as they get to know and trust each other better, but any other of the tagset relationships is fine to explore to. Gorath and his (ex?) wife? Gorath and Jimmy or the other Kingdom-affiliated characters that don't quite trust him? Etc. Post-canon musings by other characters on The Ending (cough)? Bring it on. Also, I don't mind if you write Gorath & Owyn in a way that's a bit slashy, even though I only nominated the & tag for this. I would just prefer for it to not be the focus, because frankly I have a hard time reconciling it with their differences (specifically the fact that Owyn is a 19-year-old human and Gorath is several centuries old and getting up there in years even for a dark elf, I can't really imagine him seeing Owyn in that light. Although if you feel like you can handle that in an interesting or convincing way, by all means be my guest!)
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Request #3
Fandom: Firefly
Fandom-specific DNWs: Canon-typical homophobia being treated as nonexistent, Mal and Simon falling into a neat dommy/subby binary as many interpretations of this ship tend to do. The events of Serenity the movie being treated as canon if we're being honest.
Relationships:
Malcolm Reynolds / Simon Tam
Malcolm Reynolds & Simon Tam
Malcolm Reynolds / Inara Serra / Simon Tam
I rewatched the show a few years back and this ship got me good. Whether you want to write it as more leaning towards slash or pre-slash or more platonic is fine by me, but hear me out. Mal and Simon are two sides of the same coin, and most of their tension and bickering in the show are the result of both trying to protect their Designated Protected Person(s) and not knowing if the other is a threat to that or not. Some of the driving force of the show is Mal trying to decide if Simon and River are crew or a threat to his crew. I think a lot of Firefly fans who aren't obsessed with Simal miss is that Simon is so very angry, and in a way he represents a younger, more idealistic version of Mal who's still new to the injustices of the world and is still early in the process of being embittered by it.
At the same time, god, if Inara is Mal's type, then Simon so obviously is too. Pretty-faced high-society educated person who keeps talking back at him, and is a fish out of water but takes to the criminal lifestyle somewhat better than expected? Hell yes. Mal and Simon struggling with their difference in rank and roles as captain and medic and the potential danger in not keeping things distant and professional? Hell yes. Mal struggling with the fact that he's into both of them (feel free to sprinkle this with some internalised biphobia if you like)? Hell yes.
I also love me some (realistically) BAMF!Simon and Simon getting the opportunity to shine in situations that play to his strengths (like the entirety of the Ariel episode). I also read him as fairly closeted and likely not having been really free to explore his same-sex attraction in his previous life on Osiris, with the pressure to be respectable and reflect well on his family. His canonical flirting with Kaylee is meant to show him as awkward, but honestly to me it just reads like a closeted gay guy who's desperately trying to fake it till he makes it because things would be SO much easier if he were just attracted to the pretty girl mechanic who's super into him.
You are welcome to keep this in understated UST territory, I'm a sucker for that.
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Request #4
Fandom: Live a Live (Videogame)
Fandom-specific DNWs: None
Relationships:
Mad Dog & Sundown Kid
Mad Dog / Sundown Kid
I'm really intrigued by these two and their opposing worldviews - Mad Dog seems to practically hail from an era of chivalry, he holds views about death and violence that are distinctly old-fashioned and Romantic (in the generic sense of the word). Sundown Kid seems far more pragmatic. I would like to see Mad Dog grapple with the fact that Sundown keeps showing him mercy, again and again, even as he considers it to be an insult. I would like to see Sundown face the idea of getting attached to someone, after he lost the last things he loved so violently.
A friend and I have also toyed with the idea of a modern or even post-modern (vaguely post-apocalyptic?) AU for this. It would be challenging to pick a more modern setting that still allows for the core Western themes and the dynamic between the characters, but hardly impossible, and could be quite fun. Definitely works better in a post-apoc setting.
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Request #5
Fandom: Detroit: Become Human (Videogame)
Fandom-specific DNWs: None
Relationships:
Hank Anderson & Connor
There is one specific thing I would love explored here, and that is Hank coming to terms with Connor's sentience. In the game, he's obviously very emotionally affected by Connor's human-like behaviour, in part because he's still mourning his son, but what about the intellectual side of that? What does Hank think every time Connor disobeys an order, or does meaningless little things like stare at himself in the mirror for just too long? Does Hank wonder what Connor is thinking, what's going on in that computer brain of his? I assume the multiple mirror scenes in the game are a reference to the mirror self-recognition test, which is reasonably common knowledge enough that Hank might be aware of it. At what point does he realise Connor is, or is at least in the process of becoming, something far more than a machine?
On the whumpier and related side, here's a specific prompt I would absolutely love to see written: Hank reacting to Connor's interrogation of the three androids in the Public Enemy chapter turned scrabbling fight for his life while calling Hank for help. In the game, the canonical path is Connor being a BAMF and powering through it to take down the escaping deviant, and we never see Hank's reaction to his injuries or near-death experience (unless the timer runs out and Connor dies). I would love to see this rectified. Maybe after the incident, Connor crashes and has to get repaired while Hank accesses his feed recording to understand what the hell went so wrong there. I love the idea of Hank coming to face the fact that this "machine" was acting just as desperate not to die as any living thing, and called for his help, and while he probably could rationalise it as pure calculation, it would not be easy, and would probably shake him up quite a bit.
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Request #6
Fandom: Order of the Stick
Fandom-specific DNWs: None
Relationships:
Belkar Bitterleaf & Vaarsuvius
Belkar Bitterleaf / Vaarsuvius
Requesting both / and & because as far as I can see, some weird mix of the two is canonical for them. I would love something set closer to the current point in canon that explores, through the lens of their once-animosity and confusing (at least one-sided) UST, how these two have changed as people over the course of the story. There's so much potential here
If you want to take it in a more shippy direction, that's fine too, but I would prefer it be done in a way that is cognisant of all the various obstacles to making it work - V's messy divorce, Belkar's... everything, their personal very messy history of antagonism together that only gradually petered out into more or less having each other's back, etc.
If you have a fun canon divergent idea (e.g. "What if Belkar had gotten stuck on the ship with Vaarsuvius rather than out with Haley and Celia?"), that's great too!
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Request #7
Fandom: Neverwinter Nights
Fandom-specific DNWs: None
Relationships:
Knight-Captain / Gannayev
Knight-Captain & Safiya
Knight-Captain & Okku
I would love some MotB-era exploration of one or more of these relationships against the backdrop of the KC recovering from the shitshow that was the war against the King of Shadows, only to be thrust into a new struggle for their life. Some more overt tragedy or bad endings welcome for this fandom.
In my campaign, the KC was a female tiefling so I'm pretty partial to that. But you can go with whatever tickles your fancy. I do really like the idea of an 'othered' KC who's of a race that is more ostracised, it makes for good "ragtag band of misfits" vibes with their companions.
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