Thank you so much for signing up for Yuletide, author! The first thing I want to say here is that if you aren't interested in a long letter, that's more than okay; by all means close this, don't look at it again, and write me whatever you already had in mind. :D I don't have DNWs you need to worry about avoiding, and I'd be beyond thrilled with a gift in any of these fandoms. This letter's just here to elaborate on what was in my signup and give you some more prompts and thoughts to work with, if and only if that's something you want. If you get tired of scrolling or you already had an idea you loved when you put together your offers, x away from this! Forget you ever saw it! Write me 1k of the fic of your heart, and I'll be delighted. ♥

If you genuinely enjoy having lots of optional details to look at, this probably still comes across as an excessively long letter, so by all means skim only the sections that apply. I promise you won't miss anything important! I'm naturally wordy and I love these canons a lot, and I always get a little carried away. /o\ I've done what I can to make this letter easy to read and easy to navigate, and I hope some part of it or other is helpful to you!

I'm on the AO3 as

Damkianna, and all my past exchange letters are posted to this journal, mostly under my Yuletide tag and my Fandom5K tag. My tastes are pretty reliable, so if there's a prompt in any of my previous letters for a fandom I've requested here that you like, but I didn't repeat that prompt in this letter, by all means write it anyway! (And don't feel bound by any of my old DNWs, either.)

In General

If you'd feel weird closing this letter without looking at it at all, but you really don't want to slog your way through any of the actual fandom sections, here's the bottom line: I'm opting into whatever it is you're interested in giving me, and I can't wait to read it. There's nothing you need to make sure not to write about, and no story you could tell me in these fandoms that I'm not here for. :D

I enjoy all kinds of genres, and all kinds of content, including stuff requiring any or all Archive warnings. I'm here for character studies and casefic, grief/mourning/angst and the tenderest handholding and hair-braiding in the world; I love angst, pining, and people making terrible decisions, but also banter, fluff, and friendship. I am equally interested in 1k of the plotty AU adventure that lives in your heart, and 1k of detailed worldbuilding in the form of fake in-universe documentation. Smut! Tropes! Poetry! ANYTHING. If I don't manage to prompt for something you want to write, write it anyway, and I will love it. ♥ And please feel free to take the prompts I do give in absolutely any direction you want: take the idea to its darkest possible conclusion, rocks fall everyone dies! Subvert a trope I've suggested and deconstruct it! Or take my "worst possible timeline AU" idea, and fix it!

Whatever it is you love about the fandom and characters we matched on, whatever you'd like most to write about them—please please please let me see it! Whether it's ridiculously sweet, weird, gory, kinky, scary, tragic, or none of those things at all, I WANT IT. HAND IT OVER.

I adore and would be thrilled to receive:

  •  gen! I'd be delighted with a gift about any of the characters I've requested flying solo, or about any friendships/rivalries/other platonic interactions you'd like to write about, between any two or more of them, or any one of them plus any other characters in their canon. You do NOT need to include every character I requested in my gift! Any one of them alone or any subgroup would be fantastic, as long as one of them is featured somehow. 1k of pre-canon backstory? Missing scenes? Post-canon going any which way you like? A quiet moment of connection between friends ... or enemies taunting each other? Introspection! A n y t h i n g.

  •  shipfic! I multiship in most of my fandoms, and I enjoy f/f, f/m, m/m, nonbinary or genderless characters being shipped, and poly in any configuration. I'm also definitely here for incest, age gaps, and complicated ships of all kinds—and also for earnest affection, quiet longing, and true love. ♥ So, yeah. Please feel free to include any ship you ship in my gift! (And don't worry at all about how shippy a gift you intended as shipfic turns out—I love UST and RST, pining that everyone's ignoring and hatesex where characters are fucking but not kissing ... So if you end up with something that's full of feelings but no touching, or touching but no kissing, or fucking but no feelings, rest assured that any or all of that is fantastic and I will be thrilled about it!)

  •  free space! And by that I mean anything you'd love to write for me that I manage to fail to explicitly prompt for. A particular premise you can never get enough of (arranged marriage! Accidental telepathy! Kidfic! Undercover as a couple!)? Any kind of AU or AU-adjacent trope (A/B/O! Everyone works in a coffee shop! Roleswap canon divergence! Fusion with another fandom!)? Or something funky or unusual that you've always hoped someone would ask for (a decuple drabble that comes out to 1k exactly! Second person in future conditional! Fake documentation! IN-UNIVERSE FICTIONAL SONG LYRICS ADDING UP TO 1K)? Whatever it is, please please please give me it. :D

I like fluff and angst, sad endings and happy endings, tension and relief. I would love something precisely placed and canon-compliant just as much as OCs or a brand-new setting to explore, pre-canon blanks getting filled in or post-canon adventures that go whole new directions. I'm here for rare pairings of all stripes, alternate character interpretations or AU variations, and outsider POVs on ships or on people. 1k of any part of canon you like best (or want to rewrite or take somewhere other than where it went canonically, or think is weird or creepy or funny even though canon didn't seem to mean it that way) would be awesome. Outsider POV! Interactive fiction! Chatfic! ANYTHING. Write it for me, whatever it is, and have a great Yuletide. ♥

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The Big Country (1958)

Any (James McKay, Steve Leech)

I adore this movie, and also Jim and Steve—separately, together, or in alternating POV sections, for the record! :D There's something so compelling to me about Jim and his quiet self-respect, his undramatic competence and calm, his complete refusal to make a spectacle of himself just to make other people think better of him; and I'd love anything you'd like to tell me about him. His backstory? His time at sea? How he met and fell for Pat? Or his POV on the slow burn of his feelings for Julie? Post-canon about where he and Julie go next? Or, of course, Steve! He's such a mess and that's great—I love him just as much for his macho bluster and the obvious insecurity it's covering as for his loyalty and the quiet understanding he starts to show in the end. Anything about where he's from, how he came to work for the Terrills, whether he'd really be happy with Pat if he did win her (yes and no are both fair answers!), or how he recovers from that gunshot wound would be fantastic. :D

And if you happened to feel like it, I would very much be here for Jim/Steve, too! To any degree and in any direction you'd like to take it: mid-canon UST and repression (plus or minus internalized homophobia)? Tropey post-canon h/c? Angry hatesex/dubcon where that midnight fight between them goes sideways in a way neither of them were expecting, but Steve can't back down, and Jim won't? Or an AU where Steve went after Jim to find him when he was "lost" all by himself, and Things Happened on their way back to the Terrills' together ... Anything!

I just can't help asking for this movie over and over! :D I'm so weak for Jim's particular brand of staunch self-possession, how thoughtful and patient he is, at the same time that he's so stubborn in his own way, and won't veer from what he thinks is right or best even if it might make things a lot easier. And Steve's arc was so satisfying to me—I loved his irritation with Jim and how much he disliked Jim at first, how obvious it was that he just didn't know what to do with a man who relied so little on other people's good opinions or on "performing" manliness in the ways he was used to; that he wants to fight Jim SO BADLY, and still ends up starting to see where Jim's coming from in time, however reluctantly. ♥

James McKay

HELP I LOVE JIM SO MUCH. :D He's just so calmly and quietly sure of himself, so thoughtful and perceptive—and possibly a bit self-righteous and irritating now and then, bless, but it's so hard to hold it against him. I love that he's decided so clearly what should carry weight and what shouldn't, and that he cares so much about people at the same time that he cares so little about their opinions, and doesn't mind being thought of as a coward or a fool (why should he, after all, when he knows he isn't, and anyone who pays enough attention will know the same?). ♥ JIM ♥

  •  So I'd love pretty much anything you'd like to tell me about Jim!

      ::  Where did he grow up? When did he first go to sea, and why, and who was it who taught him navigation?

      ::  What happened to give him the perspective that he has on self-respect and proving oneself? Was there some specific incident—maybe aboard ship, or ashore on leave—where social pressure and trying to "be a man" ended badly, and taught him something? (Was he once a little more like Steve—maybe more than he wants to admit?)

      ::  When and how did he become a captain? What did he think the rest of his life was going to look like, before the events of the movie?

  •  And of course I'd be happy for you to write about his relationship with Pat, too!

      ::  How did it begin? How did they meet, and fall in love? What was it about each other that first caught their attention?

      ::  What was their separation like for Jim, when Pat first returned to her family but Jim was still back east?

      ::  Did he have a certain sense of foreboding about coming west and seeing her again—a niggling feeling that things might not work out?

      ::  Or was he looking forward to learning more about where Pat came from, and understanding her better?

  •  I'd be delighted with anything about Jim set during the movie:

      ::  His romance with Julie was so lovely, and that wordless confessional moment between them in Blanco Canyon, g o d, MY HEART. So anything from Jim's first impressions of Julie to deeper feelings taking root, realizing she's been taken to relief at finding she's still alive ... totally on the table!

      ::  And Jim's POV on any part of canon, whether it's the "big country" in general when he arrives, or the Hannasseys/Ramón/the Terrills as he learns more about the situation—or, of course, Steve :D—would be fantastic.

      ::  Or! Any kind of missing scene you'd like to tackle that's Jim-centric would be awesome, too: alone on his ride, realizing he really can orient himself well before he's found by Steve ...

      ::  ... or a conversation with Pat or Julie, or even Henry Terrill, that we didn't see ...
      ::  ... or his relief when the standoff in the canyon is over!

  •  And post-movie Jim/Julie or gen of any kind would also be more than welcome!

      ::  I'd honestly be as happy to read about Jim (by himself, or with Julie) riding off and moving on to a new home, either out west or back east, far away from feuds and water rights ...

      ::  ... as about Jim (by himself, or with Julie) returning to Big Muddy and fixing the place up so it's a real ranch again (with actual details about ranching 100% optional; I know nothing about it, I won't notice if you fudge it! :D).

      ::  Or even further in the future—does he ever go to sea again? Does he marry Julie after all?

      ::  Or maybe 1k of Jim on his deathbed, thinking back, things he regrets (if only a little) and things he doesn't. ♥

Steve Leech

AND STEVE. :D I loved Steve's character arc so much—it's so easy to understand why he is the way he is, the rules he must be used to and the way he clearly perceives the world as working. And at the same time that it's understandable, it's so frustrating, because he's so rude and angry and difficult, and it's so unnecessary; he just doesn't know how else to act, and he's never had a reason to try to be different. But then Jim gives him one, even if he doesn't want it, and everything starts to change. :D His speech to the Major at the end! And then getting shot for him anyway! ;-; STEVE.

  •  So, point is: definitely here for 1k of any headcanon you might have about Steve's backstory!

      ::  Where's he from? How did he start working for the Terrills, and how did he end up foreman?

      ::  Was he sweet on Pat even before she went east? (Or might that have been more about Jim than it was about Pat, in some ways? :D)

      ::  Does he have any personal reasons to dislike the Hannasseys? (In typical feud fashion, was it "just because the Terrills do" at first, but then altercations resulted in personal grievances, and now it's A Thing?) Or is it all about the Terrills and his own stubborn loyalty?

  •  Or start a bit closer to the movie itself:

      ::  What might his reaction have been when Pat came back? Was she changed at all by her experiences back east, and if she was, did that bother him?

      ::  What does she or doesn't she tell him about Jim, before Jim arrives, and what does he think about it?

      ::  Pat and Julie have been friends for a long time, so Steve must know Julie—might they have talked to each other, about Pat or about this Jim of hers, before Jim arrived?

  •  And of course I'd be thrilled with 1k from Steve's perspective that's set during the movie, too!

      ::  Anything about his relationship with Pat would be great! He's clearly into her, or at least trying to make a point out of the possibility—what kind of future is he imagining for them? Did he have a real chance before Steve showed up, and now everything's gone wrong?

      ::  But I'm also definitely here for pre-slash of any kind at all—from only-if-you-squint to serious UST, from Steve in total denial to Steve grudgingly aware that he's got more than one reason to want to get up close and personal with Jim—would be awesome. :D

      ::  Something set during the early parts of the movie, where he's still resentful and dismissive of Jim? Or his POV during the search for Jim, and the resulting argument?

      ::  Or 1k of whatever he's thinking when he realizes it's Jim who's come into his room and woken him up, and the midnight fight? The moment Steve's understanding of Jim's philosophy began to change? The Blanco Canyon showdown, and getting shot?

  •  I'd love to read about whatever you think might happen to Steve after the movie:
      ::  If you'd like to write me the story where he dies of his bullet wound, regretful and too late to change what he did with his life, I will write you the best comment I can through my tears!

      ::  BUT feel free to let him live and tell me something else about him, too. :D What does he do—keep working for the Terrills?

      ::  Or maybe he marries Pat after all, both of them a little older and wiser now?

      ::  Or does he move on to another ranch, or even start up his own somewhere else, using the lessons he's learned to run it differently than the Terrills?

      ::  Would he choose to take on Big Muddy himself, if Jim and Julie didn't? Fixing it up, at the same time that he's now conscious of a need to better himself, too?

      ::  Or maybe Jim and Julie stay? Julie has a line about how you'd need a good foreman to run a place like that—would they ask Steve to take on that role? (And would he accept, or refuse?)

Jim/Steve

And the pairing's getting its own batch of prompts, because I had a few too many to fit up there. :D By the way, please rest assured that while I'd appreciate Julie and/or Pat being treated kindly or at least understandingly, if they do appear in your story—you don't need to spend the beginning of a Jim/Steve fic explaining to me how Jim and Julie broke up, if you don't want to! I'm happy to take it as read, if you like, and roll with Jim/Steve at any point during or after the movie without blinking. (You definitely can if you want to; just don't feel obligated, is all. :D)

  •  As I've mentioned elsewhere, you should feel free to give me anything that's pre-slash or ship-if-you-squint, and don't worry one bit that it's not shippy "enough"!

      ::  Something where Steve's been hearing all about Jim from Pat, irritated and resentful about having to listen to her talk about this other man ... and then Jim shows up, and ~~OH NO, HE'S HOT~~ OH NO, HE'S EVEN WORSE THAN STEVE IMAGINED?

      ::  Or maybe Jim's the one who's heard a bit about Steve from Pat, and wasn't quite sure what to expect?

      ::  Their first meeting from either of their POVs—what they think before, whether they want to make a good impression or not, and what they think after?

  •  Or something a little later in the movie's events?

      ::  By all means, feel free to let that visit Jim makes to Steve's room end differently—whether that's a single furious impulsive kiss that takes them both a bit by surprise, or higher-rated territory!

      ::  And for the record, dubcon would be more than okay here, whether you think Steve might want to ~teach Jim a lesson, and then that impulse goes sideways on him ...

      ::  ... or maybe Jim might start something that Steve—well, probably isn't willing to let on that he's dying for, even if he is. :D

      ::  And I should mention as a side note that it makes a lot of sense to me for Steve—who's clearly pretty hung up on how men "ought" to be/what makes a man a "real" man—to have some internalized homophobia/biphobia, and/or be very uncomfortable with his own response to Jim. If that's something you're interested in exploring, I would be there for it! If not, no worries; you definitely don't have to include period-appropriate homophobia on either of their parts if you don't want to. Whatever works for you!

  •  And of course post-canon would be great, too. :D I love h/c so much, and I would read a thousand different takes on Jim involved in Steve's recovery from his gunshot wound! TEN THOUSAND.

      ::  Does Jim find him immediately afterward, injured, and bandage him up long enough to get him out of Blanco to a bed?

      ::  Or does Steve make it up and away with someone else's help, and hole up somewhere ... but Jim tracks him down and won't stop checking in on him?

      ::  Or something set a little further off: what if they met again after a few years? Steve helping Pat run the Terrill place, maybe, and Jim passing through?

      ::  Or Steve having had to go east for ~reasons (on business for Pat?) and running into Jim there?

    ::  Or what if Jim does stick around and takes on Big Muddy alone? I'm also weak for accidental domesticity, and I'd adore something where Steve starts showing up more and more often, with tools Jim needs or a little gruffly offered advice, or just as an extra pair of hands ... :D

  •  Or basically anything else you're interested in writing me!

      ::  By all means, trap them together in bad weather, make them huddle for warmth; invent a sex pollen plant that grows only in the soil of Big Muddy, and Steve realizes nobody warned Jim about it!

      ::  Give me the AU where there was some kind of outrageous mixup, and the bride Steve mail-ordered from back east ... is a quiet-spoken man who doesn't seem half as angry about the mistake as he should be. :D

      ::  What if Steve had gotten lucky and found Jim sooner, and they'd had a chance to talk a little more on the ride back?

      ::  Or what if Steve had, without Jim noticing, come back early enough to catch Jim on Old Thunder?

      ::  What if this were IN SPACE and the Terrills and Hannasseys owned competing mining outfits working the same asteroid belt?

      ::  WHAT IF STEVE HAD JIM'S NAME ON HIS WRIST. OR EVERYONE WERE WEREWOLVES. *waves hands* Anything!

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Dark Matter (TV)

Misaki Han-Shireikan, Nyx Harper, Three, Two

I realize this is an unusual character combination, so please know I'm definitely not expecting you to make sure all four of them are included at once! I'd be thrilled with a story about any subgroup you can get in the same place at the same time, or any of them individually—or rotating POVs from each of them, even when they're on opposite sides of the galaxy, for that matter! Misaki's past, training for the royal guard and navigating the imperial court, plotting and maneuvering and ruining people's lives? Nyx with the Seers, and how she ended up in prison where the crew found her? YES. Three trying to escape from Alt!Portia, post-S3, and make his way back to the ship? Two—or Rebecca, or Portia, during whatever part of her past you'd like to focus on; or figuring out what comes next as just Two, after freeing herself from that alien? BY ALL MEANS.

And I also love the rest of the ensemble cast and occasional/recurring characters, so as long as one of my requested characters is featured somehow, anybody and everybody else you'd like to include is more than welcome! Dr. Shaw? Devon? Teku? Hiro? John Anders? Sarah? Truffault? The Empress dowager? *waves hands* Anybody! I'd be thrilled with shipfic about any two or more of my requested characters, too, or any one of them and anybody else. And I'd be happy to receive fic about any canonical character deaths, or deathfic for anyone who was still alive when S3 ended—though of course AUs where everything turns out better or 1k of fix-it fic would be fantastic, too! :D

I still miss this show so much, and I'm always so excited to revisit the universe and the characters whenever I get the chance. ♥ There are so many things I love about Dark Matter, I can guarantee you I will like anything you want to throw at me—darkfic about Misaki ruining people's lives (including her own)? Fluff about Two and Nyx tentatively flirting with each other? Horror about how the alien rift felt to Three, and what their influence is like? Yes and yes and yes. Whatever tone or genre you want to aim for, heist shenanigans or galactic politics, found family feels or desperation in the face of unstoppable alien invasion, this is 100% the canon for it, and I'm looking forward to it! (And I should mention—if you'd like to make use of supplementary canon like Joe Mallozzi's summaries of how the first three eps of S4 would have gone down, feel free! If you'd rather go a different direction post-canon, by all means, go for it.)

Misaki Han-Shireikan

OH MISAKI. I was interested in Misaki basically the very first time she appeared on screen, without even knowing who she was, and that didn't change at all as I got to know her better. :D Which, she is definitely violent and manipulative and unkind, and you don't need to pretend she isn't! I love the contrast between the face she sometimes presents (cool, pragmatic, reasonable, loyal) and the things she does when she has the chance (hold endless resentful grudges, pine but like in an angry way, kill people, plan a coup), and I'd adore anything you'd like to write me about her! The things she wants and what she'll do to get them, how unapologetic she is about it, the lines she crosses without looking back ... YES PLEASE.

  •  Backstory! Totally here for your headcanons about Zairon, or anything about a younger Misaki growing up in the imperial court. :D

      ::  1k about her childhood? Any direction you'd like to take it, from court intrigue involving her family that a young Misaki only just starts to understand ...

      ::  ... to other weirdly adorable pranks Ryo might have played on her when they were companions as children!

      ::  Her early training, and how she ended up joining or being recruited to the imperial guard in the first place?

      ::  Or once she's in the guard—how did she manage to rise to the point where she could take the captain's place after Four killed Akita?

      ::  Her perspective on the dowager empress, or on Ryo's father's death and Ryo's exile, or how her rivalry with Teku began?

  •  Or, of course, anything about Misaki set during canon would be fantastic. :D

      ::  What was it like in the imperial court when Hiro was emperor, and she was captain of his guard? How did she feel about him? Did she ever think about trying to orchestrate a coup against him?

      ::  What was she thinking or feeling when Ryo was captured, and to what degree was she expecting what happened in the throne room?

      ::  Did she interact with the Seers at all while they were serving Hiro? (Did she hate them and want them dead, or was she surprised by that part?)

      ::  Or! Please feel free to give me the most excruciating thousand words you can generate about what it was like for her to overhear that conversation between Nyx and Ryo, and developing her plans to eliminate Nyx. ;-;

      ::  Or anything about the moment when Ryo discovered that she'd succeeded? The planning and execution of the coup, that fight with Two—the moment Misaki realized she wasn't going to win it?

  •  Obviously futurefic about Misaki requires a little footwork; I'm totally here for AUs where she didn't die, or a Misaki from another part of the canonical multiverse, or *waves hands* a synthetic model with (most of) Misaki's memories loaded into her!

      ::  I'd love "fix-it" from her perspective where Ryo can in fact be convinced to make her empress!

      ::  Or where her coup succeeds, and she takes command of Zairon's forces in the war against Pyr, and starts fighting it her way. (Was she right to think she could do better than Ryo? Or was she wrong?)

      ::  BUT I'd also love fix-it from everyone else's perspective—where the android shows up earlier, maybe, and she and Nyx together are able to beat Misaki and take her prisoner? As a bargaining chip to use against Ryo, even?

      ::  Or diverge from canon anywhere else you like! If Ryo had succeeded in keeping and duplicating the blink drive, and Zairon's fleets utterly wrecked Pyr and rolled unstoppably through the galaxy—would Misaki ever have a reason to regret her decisions?

      ::  Or if she'd gone looking for Ryo earlier, and tracked Four down, and ended up on the Raza—joined the crew, purely because it served her purposes, and gotten to know them?

  •  And shipfic with Misaki involved would be more than welcome. :D Anything from UST to hatesex would be great, and I'd be delighted to receive Misaki/Nyx, Misaki/Three, or Misaki/Two (along with Misaki/Ryo, whether one-sided or reciprocated, or Misaki/anybody else, for that matter).

      ::  If Nyx had managed to win her fight with Misaki—might Misaki have (however unwillingly) admired her for it? If Misaki were imprisoned on the Raza afterward, what else could that admiration have turned into? :D

      ::  Would Three be up for a round of hatesex? (Does he share his alternate counterpart's enjoyment of being hit and/or choked during sex? Because I can definitely see Misaki accidentally getting him going, and then choosing to see how far she can take it just to humiliate him ...)

      ::  In a universe where she didn't kill Nyx, or hadn't yet—could Two have ended up grudgingly reaching out to her (trying anything/everything to get the blink drive back from Ryo, maybe)?

      ::  Would Six try to redeem her? (Oh, Six. :D) Or just end up calmly talking about the "right thing" at her while she insulted him?

      ::  Or, venturing a bit sideways—might she ever have tried to seduce Hiro to make him easier to manipulate, while Ryo was gone?

      ::  I don't know how it would happen, but for the record 1k of the android observing Misaki and trying to work out her reasoning for the things she does, in her blandly patient android way, would be A++. :D

Nyx Harper

NYX. ♥ I loved Nyx so much, and I was so bummed when she died—which is to say I'd be just as pleased with deathfic that takes me right back to the moment I realized what had just happened on my screen (;-;) as I would be with a fix-it! And for the record, post-S2 fic of Two hallucinating her some more, or encountering a Nyx from another universe (who perhaps had a different—better? or worse?—relationship with her own Portia) would be fantastic, too. :D

  •  Or, of course, death doesn't need to come into it at all, if you'd like to write something set pre-canon! Plus or minus Milo, too, or Nyx's parents/other OC Seers, if you've got headcanons. :D

      ::  The first time Nyx was placed in the Seers' machinery and understood what she'd be used for—what is it like to be part of their linked-up hive-mind, being fed foundational data and delivering projections?

      ::  The first time it occurred to her that she could escape?

      ::  How did she manage to plan her getaway without any of the other Seers predicting it? (Or maybe she messed up the first couple times, more predictable than she should have been?)

      ::  How did she end up in prison, and who she might have met there before the crew showed up? (Was it intentional—did she want to be there, thinking the Seers wouldn't predict it or couldn't get to her in there? Or was it an accident she saw coming a little too late?)

  •  By all means set something during the show, while she's still alive:

      ::  Meeting Two and Three and Four in prison! What did she think of them when they first arrived?

      ::  Was she already intending to escape and they just made it easier, or had she been planning to stay where she was, but then she learned they had a ship and might be useful to her?

      ::  And then once she got out with them—was Milo the first thing on her mind? Did she feel any guilt for deceiving the crew as to what she was really after on the Seers' ship?

      ::  Basically anything from her perspective about being on the Raza, getting used to a new ship and new people when she'd been raised on the Seers' vessel her whole life, the moment she really started to feel like crew or think of it as home ...

      ::  Or anything with a slightly wider scope! Her POV on Four taking his memories back, how painful that was ...

      ::  ... or on Zairon and Pyr, the corporations (was she fed data, with the Seers, that means she's better informed about the galaxy than the rest of the crew?)

  •  But feel free to make me cry if you want to, too:

      ::  Nyx's POV on Eos 7 and their odds of success, the lead-in to the fight with Misaki and the moment she realized she'd lose! ;-;

      ::  Two can't stop hallucinating her, a lot further into S3 than we were shown! ;-;

      ::  Or—if she'd accepted Ryo's offer to make her empress, would she have survived it? Presumably there'd be plenty of new enemies for her in his court, but could she have found a way (or, reluctantly, used enough Shadow) to see them coming and survive?

      ::  Could she have changed the course of the conflict with Pyr, or the uprising/Misaki's coup attempt?

      ::  Could she have seen the "black ships" coming, if she'd had the right data?

      ::  Or, of course, if the android had reached the bridge in time to help her—or the android had been on the bridge instead, when Misaki arrived, and it had been Nyx who'd confronted Ryo in the engine room?

  •  And I'd be thrilled with any shipfic you'd like to write involving Nyx! I talked a little about some prompts for Misaki/Nyx in Misaki's section, but there's plenty more options:

      ::  Nyx/Two? I would absolutely love any tropey thing you'd like to write here about them rescuing each other, or trapped on a planet and huddling for warmth, or sex-pollened, or dumped sideways into a different alternate universe where they're married! ANYTHING. :D

      ::  Nyx/Three? Three offers to be her sparring partner after Ryo's left, and Nyx kicks his ass but totally appreciates the gesture! Whenever Three gets drunk he starts telling Nyx how pretty she is in relentless earnest detail! :D (Nyx/Two/Three: ALSO AN A++ CHOICE.)

      ::  Nyx/Devon? I hugely enjoyed Devon's ridiculous angsty doctor backstory, so if emotional h/c is your thing, feel free to indulge! (Could Nyx have caught some extra bit of information that gave her a flash of vision about the attack that killed him—could she have found him in time to save him?)

      ::  Nyx/Four and/or Nyx/Ryo would be wonderful, in any direction you'd like to take it; anything from her POV on how they came together and how it fell apart, as wrenching as you'd like to get ... or 1k of the AU where Four decides not to take back Ryo's memories, and they stay together!

      ::  Nyx/Six—early in S2, was she maybe easier to talk to than anyone from the S1 crew, for Six? Did he repay the favor by being there for her after the Seers took back Milo? ♥

      ::  Nyx/android! Nyx was sort of part of a machine once, and she's got a gift for calculation; they have more common ground than it might appear, and I'd love to see them explore it a little. :D

      ::  (And if you'd like to go full AU and let Nyx and One meet, I'd be there for it! Is there a universe where he deliberately got himself thrown in prison with the rest of the crew at the start of S2, and Nyx found his earnest good intentions disarming?)

Three

Three! :D I was really not expecting to love Three as much as I did, because he can be such an ass ... but he's an ass with a heart of gold, and he cares so much about people even when he's trying to pretend not to, and he tries so hard even when the odds are against him. OH THREE. ♥ His amazing angsty backstory with his parents' deaths and Tanner and Sarah, as Marcus Boone, is just the cherry on top! I love how thoroughly all-in he gets about the crew, to the extent that he's SO ANGRY with Six for having betrayed them, and his relationship with Five is just *kisses fingertips* PERFECTION. So, yeah. Anything you'd like to write me about Three, I will adore!

  •  By all means dive into his pre-canon backstory at any point you'd like:

      ::  With Tanner and his gang? Did he believe what Tanner told him about what happened to his parents, or not? Did he get suspicious over time?

      ::  Please feel free to delve more deeply into what it was like for him, getting left behind on that planet and waking up in Sarah's house, the grudging process of falling for her and of realizing that it had happened!

      ::  Or, of course, tell me all about how Marcus Boone ended up on Portia Lin's ship! How did he convince Portia to take him on?

      ::  Did he get Sarah's stasis pod on board without anyone knowing, or did he have to tell Portia about her?

      ::  Was he actually planning to activate that beacon Tanner'd given him, or was he hiding it because he wanted to stay on the Raza and get as far away from Tanner as he could?

      ::  What did he think of the rest of the crew before they lost their memories?

  •  Or anything set during the show, in any season, would be fantastic. :D

      ::  S1 Three, still all suspicious and douchey, trying to figure out what the hell is going on, who he is, and whether he can trust anyone?

      ::  Fuckbuddies with Two, or trying to work out what One's deal is?

      ::  Or S2 Three—his reaction to the S1 finale and to prison, to the realization that it was Six and not One that he couldn't trust?

      ::  Aaaaaanything in his POV about the episode where Tanner shows up, YES PLEASE, or being trapped on the shuttle with Six? :D

      ::  Or, of course, S3! Anything about what it's like to realize that the alien blob that was in him is only the beginning?

      ::  His interactions with Sarah's preserved consciousness?

      ::  1k of scenes we didn't see from the time loop episode? :D

  •  And I'm 100% here for futurefic or AUs that are focused on Three, too:

      ::  His perspective on the events of the final episode would honestly be great. What happens to him, on that shuttle with Portia—does he escape, or can he convince her to go back, or does he just have to cooperate with her until he can come up with some more options?

      ::  If he did manage to meet up with the rest of the crew again, somehow or other—would they be able to rescue Six from the far side of that rift?

      ::  Could Three even sense Six's presence on the other side somehow, given his weird connection to the aliens?

      ::  Would they have to hurry to warn the corporations, or Zairon, or the independent colonies, about the aliens?

      ::  Or would they already be faced with an army of possessed synthetics coming out of the woodwork? (No need to go epic, I swear; 1k of scene-setting from Three's POV would be fantastic. :D)

      ::  Or maybe the aliens would be able to reach out to Three and take him over remotely, to force him to serve as an intermediary? (I'm as up for body horror and creepy ambiguous endings as I am for the crew figuring out how to break the aliens' hold and rescue him. JUST SO YOU KNOW.)

      ::  Or! Give me 1k of the AU where he took Marcus Boone's memories back, instead of Four taking Ryo's?

      ::  Where he and One managed to realize it wasn't either of them who was the problem, and successfully stopped Six from contacting the GA?

      ::  Where he rejoined Tanner's gang after all—and then regretted it?

  •  And I ship Three with pretty much anybody and everybody—I talked a bit about Misaki/Three and Nyx/Three already, but if I manage to leave any OTHER Three ship you'd like to write off this list, pretend I didn't and go for it!

      ::  Totally here for any and all fuckbuddies-friends-loyalty kink combination for Three and Two! I love that they banged first and realized exactly how much they cared about and could rely on each other after, and I'd adore any tropey thing about Two rescuing Three, or more pretending to be married, or Three trying to throw himself on a grenade for Two. ♥

      ::  And also very much here for Three ships involving other characters I didn't request! Three/One? ABSOLUTELY. Please feel free to give me all kinds of words of them saving each other's lives/resenting each other, partly for being so annoyingly attractive/being trapped together in small spaces. Or Three's terrible angsty mourning feelings, after One's death! ;-; (Three/One/Two? DEFINITELY on the table!)

      ::  Three/GA officers! I loved his weird quasi-enemy-mine thing with Kierken and am totally here for more confrontations, or saving each other and escaping Eos-7—and that episode where he was stuck on that planet with John Anders, and Anders lied to keep the GA from finding him, omg yes please. :D

      ::  Three/Four? Three admired his badassery so much in S1, and it must have been as weird for him as it was for anyone when Four became Ryo and left them—give me all the UST and sparring where Three loses abominably, or all the angsty could-have-beens!

      ::  Three/Six! I love love love this relationship, especially in all its thorniness during and after S2; please feel free to trap them in a shuttle again, or make them pretend to be married for a job, or save each other and/or get hurt trying to protect each other. :D (Three/Two/Six? ALSO ON THE TABLE)

      ::  Three/Sarah? I'd enjoy something set in their joint backstory, before Sarah even really knows who Three is, just as much as something full of longing and tentative reconnection set when she wakes up again, or while she's in the computer—or post-canon where Three encounters her in her new android body!

      ::  Or Three/the android! I love how his attitude toward the android changes over time, the transition from "that robot" to "our robot"—anything where he discovers he's a lot more protective of her and of her personhood than he'd expected, or he got himself hurt and she's looking after him in the infirmary? Or even something where he's so gravely injured somehow that Shaw agrees to build him an android body, and the android's got to help him get used to it?

Two

AND TWO. I don't even have the words to summarize all the things I love about Two; she's so badass and physically unstoppable in so many ways, so terse and self-contained most of the time, and yet she cares about everything so much, and takes on so much responsibility, and tries so hard to do the right thing. ♥ TWO. I love how stone-cold she can be—just shooting Corso in the head like that, goddamn—and I love how sensitive and uncertain she can be—when she thinks Five is afraid of her, or when even she doesn't know how her neck healed so fast. IN CONCLUSION, I'm so here for anything you'd like to tell me about Two. :D

  •  S3 was such a goldmine of Two backstory—I'd be thrilled with any part of it that you're interested in exploring!

      ::  Her POV on her time as Rebecca in the Dwarf Star facility? (Feel free to lean into the horror, torture, and angst! ;-;)

      ::  The earliest beginnings of her relationship with Dr. Shaw, from her perspective?

      ::  Her escape, and trying to find her way to Dr. Shaw's apartment after?

      ::  Or tell me about the aftermath: leaving the planet with Dr. Shaw, and finding that facility, and the early stages of turning it into a shelter for androids ...

      ::  ... or the tragedy of Dr. Shaw's illness, Rebecca having to watch its progression until Shaw went into stasis—FEEL FREE TO TEAR MY HEART OUT. ;-;

      ::  Or Portia! How exactly did Rebecca become Portia? Where did she get the Raza? How'd she end up in business with Tabor Calchek?

      ::  How strange was it for her, seeing the android with Shaw's face every day? ;-;

      ::  And if you've got any headcanon about where her daughter is, or any of the other stuff Ryo revealed—if it was even true—by all means tell me how that went down!

      ::  We saw how Das ended up on the Raza, but not anybody else! Did they join up, or did Portia recruit them? What did she think of each of them?

      ::  Why didn't she kill "Griffin" the moment she suspected him? Did she have any suspicions about "Corso"?

  •  Or tell me anything about Two from anywhere during the show—and I love missing scenes, episode tags, and canon-compliance, but if you want to just write 1k of the beginning of a con job from *waves hands* somewhere in S1, that's a-okay too. :D

      ::  S1 Two, still not quite sure what she is, concealing her already-healed injuries ... did she have any hypotheses about what she might turn out to be or why?

      ::  Or was she just trying not to think about it, until Dwarf Star and Rook made it impossible?

      ::  Or dealing with all the change and loss and struggle in S2—One's death and the aftermath, tracking down Corso and shooting him in the head?

      ::  Her nanites failing her, and what it was like to suddenly be unable to rely on a body that had been so exceptionally capable before! Does the upgrade feel different—can she do more or control her nanites better afterwards?

      ::  Four turning into Ryo on her, and leaving them—how did she feel about him taking his imprint back?

      ::  Or, of course, S3! Losing Nyx, Six taking his leave temporarily, adding on Adrian and Solara, jumping through time ...

      ::  And anything about her reaction to discovering SO MUCH about her own origins at last would be fantastic!

      ::  Also, anything about her experiences while possessed by the alien in the finale—what it was like to be implanted with it, and whether she could tell what it was using her body to do, or not?

  •  And of course AUs and futurefic are more than welcome, too!

      ::  If she'd managed to realize that doctor had an alien in her, and fought her off in time—could she have contacted the crew and saved Six?

      ::  Or tell me what you think happens next: how does the crew reunite, save each other and themselves and start trying to work out where to go from here?

      ::  What might have happened if she'd decided not to execute Ryo, but rather to wipe him again?

      ::  Or if (to help her access the strongbox? Because she doesn't know what to do with whatever's inside?) she decided to take back Portia's imprint in her turn ...

  •  Plus, of course, I ship Two with pretty much everybody. :D I discussed Misaki/Two, Nyx/Two, and Three/Two above, but that still leaves all kinds of options:

      ::  Two/One! Anything that covers any part of their S1 relationship would be wonderful; and fix-it for One's death is absolutely welcome, as is 1k of Two all stonefaced and vengeful and coolly shooting Jace Corso in the head. (One/Two/Three? ALSO VERY MUCH WELCOME.)

      ::  Two/Six! Post-canon, could having had an alien in her let her sense Six on the other side of that rift—or even give them some kind of mental connection? Or anything set during S2/S3, with Six trying to prove himself to her and Two choosing to trust him again, Six leaving the ship and then coming back, would be great! LOYALTY KINK FTW.

      ::  Two/Four? Especially going all sorts of complicated and prickly, with Ryo taking the blink drive like that and Two demonstrating her willingness to kill him for the rest of the crew? *______*

      ::  Two/android? Rebecca/Shaw? Portia/android? All three at various points? GO WILD. :D I loved Rebecca and Shaw's story and would be thrilled to have it explored, just as much as I love Two and the android deciding that whoever they're based off of or used to be, they're their own selves now with their own relationship. ♥

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The Huntsman (movies)

Ravenna

I will never get over these movies, everything about them is so thoroughly my jam—from the magic and the drama and all the women in armor to the almost-horror-in-places aesthetic and obsessive anger and death. :D And I know the tag is for both movies, but you definitely do NOT need to have watched Winter's War to write me a Ravenna fic I'll adore! Set it in SWatH, or place it post-SWatH but pretend there's no such thing as Winter's War ... or put it between movies but go a different direction than WW did, or use WW canon however you see fit. Whatever works for you! I love these movies separately or together, and I'm equally happy for you to treat it all as canon or ignore what doesn't work for you and take things somewhere else entirely.

And! I'm asking for Ravenna because I just can't help myself. Obviously Charlize Theron in general is a huge plus no matter what; but Ravenna as a character is so compelling to me for her sheer charismatic terribleness, her relentless ambition and her deliberate cruelty, the pain and fury that underlies it all. ♥ So I'd be delighted with basically anything you want to write about Ravenna, whether it's deathfic, an AU where she gets a happy ending despite herself, or anything in between! Her childhood with her siblings? Other kingdoms she's toppled, on her way through the world? Losing Finn, or disguising herself as Will and kissing Snow White? What it's like in the space within the mirror? And shipfic is more than welcome, too—Ravenna/Snow White, Ravenna/Freya or Ravenna/Finn or magical incest OT3, Ravenna/Sara ... whatever you like!

There are so many things about these movies that I adore—the aesthetics! The fairytale framework! The weird and sometimes inexplicable magic that you have to keep an eye out for if you want to not die!—but despite all that competition, one of the big things that keeps me rewatching them is DEFINITELY Ravenna. Everything about her, her anger and her magnetism and her whole gleaming murderous raven-feathered aesthetic, the slow smug way she smiles to herself while people die around her, is fantastic and awful and I love it. :D

Ravenna

SO YEAH. By all means, write me anything you like about Ravenna! And while I would be delighted by an AU where she manages to find herself a genuine happy ending (presumably despite herself, and no doubt it would take her time to recognize it for what it is), please don't feel any need to soften her or smooth down her sharp edges. There's a lot about Ravenna that's vicious and petty and unkind, however much she may legitimately have been wronged in her turn, and I'm 100% on board with her making bad decisions, doing bad things, and believing herself to be justified and even the aggrieved party when that's not what's happening at all. :D

  •  Backstory! There's all kinds of places you could go pre-canon, whether you want to use Winter's War or not, and I'd love a fic about any part of it:

      ::  Ravenna's youth with Finn and/or Freya—how they related to each other and connected to each other, as kids?

      ::  The circumstances of Ravenna's first use of magic or first killing (or both, if they were the same moment) ...

      ::  And if you like to worldbuild, by all means feel free to fill in some blanks! Where is the Duchy of Blackwood? What other kings and queens has Ravenna destroyed?

      ::  Where did she get the mirror, and when?

      ::  Is she ruling in absentia anywhere, other countries or empires—what stories follow her, what do other nations' people say about her? (Is she worshipped anywhere? Considered a goddess? A good one ... or one you ward yourself against?)

  •  Or! Something set during either movie, or between them. :D

      ::  Her perspective on basically any part of SWatH, or a missing scene, would be wonderful! How does King Magnus's kingdom compare—does she miss others she once ruled?

      ::  People, places, art and music and books that once existed, dances no one else remembers the steps to (except maybe Finn)?

      ::  Does she truly hate Snow White, or is she almost relieved to be run through, to have the long exhausting march of "too many lives" end?

      ::  Between movies—what is it like inside the mirror, looking out at Snow White from it? What does she do, or say, to drive Snow White so close to the edge?

      ::  What is it like in Winter's War, to step out of the mirror again and be almost alive, to be reunited Freya at last (and then watch her die ;-;)?

  •  Or AU me any way you like!

      ::  What if Snow White hadn't managed to escape? If Ravenna had gone to talk to her enough times—might she have been moved eventually to spare her? Or deliberately given Snow White the chance to kill her?

      ::  Or, of course, what if Ravenna had killed Snow White, and eaten her heart? Would it have worked out the way she expected it to? Or would she have been changed somehow by it?

      ::  Might she end up with Snow White's connection to the land of the kingdom, and thereby be forced to learn how to actually care for it? Would the white hart ever come to her?

      ::  Ignore Winter's War completely; what might have happened if Snow White had spared Ravenna instead, at the end of the first movie?

      ::  Or use the mirror thing but no more—if Snow White had realized Ravenna was in there, and found a way to get her out? If Ravenna had succeeded in tricking her, driving her slowly mad?

      ::  Or! What if Freya had come down from the north personally to get the mirror? Or had sent a still-enchanted Sara for it? What if Snow White had insisted on escorting it north herself?

  •  And of course I'm all over Ravenna shipfic. :D

      ::  I loved the codependence and mental connection between Ravenna and Finn, so anything leaning on that for anything from an incestuous vibe to porn would be wonderful!

      ::  And Ravenna/huntsman or Ravenna/William would be great, whether we're talking 1k of Ravenna being SUPER CREEPY or 1k of the beginning of what could become sincere slow burn—where she's captured either of them, perhaps, and tries to make them love her? Fails ... or succeeds? Or Snow-Queens them to force them to stop feeling anything for Snow White, and noncons them, and they don't even care anymore? D: but also yes please

      ::  I am very much here for incest and would love Ravenna/Freya—the whole spectrum from Ravenna insisting they can only trust each other and manipulating Freya to sincere affection (or both at once) is absolutely open to you! :D

      ::  Could Ravenna have tired of disposable kings a little earlier, and chosen to install Freya as her eternal silver sister-queen instead?

      ::  Or Ravenna/Snow White, because I will never get enough! In absolutely any flavor: canonical obsessiveness tinged with UST? Ravenna dubconning or nonconning captive Snow White? Any sort of AU or your favorite f/f trope—accidental soulbonding, or hatesex that doesn't stay hatesex, or amnesia. Or might Queen Snow White, faced with a magical problem, have no option but to retrieve Ravenna from the lands of the dead, and ask for her help?

      ::  And of course if you'd like to AU things so that Ravenna and Sara meet—in a universe where it was Eric/the canonical huntsman who was taken by Freya, and Sara who roamed the world thinking he was dead and getting hired to hunt down princesses ... :D

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Jeremiah (TV)

Theo Coleridge

Jeremiah is one of my best-beloved nostalgia canons, and I still love it so much—and one of my favorite characters in the whole show was absolutely Theo! She had me right from the pilot, and I was thrilled when she started showing up again later in the show. She's such a fascinating combination of ruthless, practical, resourceful, and unapologetic, and I'd love to read pretty much any story you'd like to tell me about her, from backstory before the show to anything she was doing offscreen between her appearances, post-canon speculation or AUs taking her any direction you can think of.

I also ship her with just about everybody, so if there's some Theo shipfic that lives in your heart that you've been waiting for an excuse to write (Theo/Erin? Theo/Markus? Theo/Jeremiah? Theo/Kurdy? Theo/Elizabeth? Theo/Libby?), by all means give it to me. :D And I'm incredibly weak for post-apocalyptic settings, so absolutely anything about the world of Jeremiah that you'd like to explore through a story about Theo would be amazing, from the story of how she ended up in charge of Clairfield in the first place to attempting to forge an alliance with the other local leaders, or the recovery after Daniel's army is defeated. Anything!

This show is probably where my abiding love for apocalypses and their aftermath comes from—it was so earnest (sometimes to the point of cringe, I admit) and I totally adore people doing their best to come together and build something new out of the ashes, even if they struggle with it, even when there are setbacks, which means it gave me just about everything I could have asked for. :D Which, I definitely do love both the effort and commitment and the struggles and setbacks, the times when the characters defaulted to cruelty or distrust and the times when they extended unexpected kindness, so darkfic and happy endings are both on the table!

Theo Coleridge

THEO. :D Theo's arc has always been one of my favorite things about the show—starting off as much more of an antagonist than not, and gaining more and more nuance every time she reappeared. I love how smart and tough and difficult she is, that she's always looking out for herself but at the same time aware that there's more going on in the world, and that every now and then the latter tips her in new and unexpected directions. So, yeah. Any story you'd like to tell me about Theo, I'm here for it!

  •  Anything about Theo set before the show starts would be fantastic. :D

      ::  How did she end up in charge of Clairfield? (By all means run with everything she said about it in the pilot being basically true ... or decide she exaggerated or smoothed over a few things. :D)

      ::  What kinds of challenges had she faced before Jeremiah and Kurdy showed up, and how did she handle them?

      ::  How did she first learn about Thunder Mountain/"the end of the world"?

  •  And of course I'd love missing scenes and/or episode tags that fill in some of the gaps between Theo's various appearances on the show!

      ::  How did she handle the aftermath of the pilot, and what did or didn't change about the way she ran Clairfield?

      ::  What happened to put her in the position she's in during 1.11? There's got to be more to it than she'd have admitted to anybody from Thunder Mountain ...

      ::  Or between 1.11 and 1.18? Her standing as a leader seems to have stabilized somewhat by 1.18—how did she pull that off?

      ::  Or between 1.18 and 2.04-2.05! How and when did she discover she was pregnant? Had she told anybody else, or was she trying to hide it and also maybe pretend it wasn't happening at all?

      ::  Or, of course, after 2.05! What's her response to the whole Daniel situation? What does she have her people do to prepare?

  •  Or! Post-canon adventures of any kind—or, well, leading into post-canon, because she's offscreen for the end of S2:

      ::  Where is she when Daniel's army shows up? Is she coordinating with Thunder Mountain in ways we just didn't see, or holding back, waiting to see who comes out on top?

      ::  How does she survive it—or does she go down fighting, scratching tooth and nail? ;-; OH THEO

      ::  What happens next? Does she come back and help start rebuilding in the aftermath—playing it like it's for her own benefit, but inwardly relieved there's still something left?

      ::  And I would 100% be there for a pregnancy fic that tackles what it's like trying to give birth safely—is she willing to go to Thunder Mountain for help? Does she try to handle it all herself? (If she does, does it go well ... or badly? ;-;)

  •  I'd be stoked about an AU branching off from just about anywhere, too, or fixing anything you'd like to fix!

      ::  What if Theo had in fact discovered Thunder Mountain first, or had followed Jeremiah and Kurdy there? (Waited for them to leave, pretended to need help, and managed to get herself inside?)

      ::  Would she have taken it over/sabotaged it, or ended up won over by their mission and Markus's earnestness despite herself?

      ::  Or a role reversal, however you feel like you can swing it: how could she have ended up as a runner for Thunder Mountain, in another world?

      ::  What would Thunder Mountain look like if she'd been in Markus's place? (Better, worse, and somewhere in between are all 100% fair answers!)

      ::  "Fix it" from Theo's perspective: what would have happened if she'd succeeded in holding Jeremiah, Kurdy, and Simon until she could get some answers, and her people hadn't turned on her?

      ::  Or fix anything else about the show, with Theo involved—let her save Elizabeth? Let the leaders succeed in forging an alliance that can fend off Daniel's forces entirely? Whatever you like!

  •  And I'd be t h r i l l e d with Theo shipfic, too!

      ::  I can admit that I probably ship Theo the most intensely with Erin, on the strength of That One Conversation in 2.04—I would be delighted with 1k of the tropiest ever accidental domesticity fic, where Erin does end up helping Theo through her pregnancy, and they share quarters in Thunder Mountain but it's Just Practical (it's not just practical), and feelings happen. :D

      ::  Or anything else you're interested in for them! Theo's pregnancy makes her horny = fuckbuddies? AU where they meet earlier (both captured in Milhaven, maybe)? WINGFIC. Anything!

      ::  BUT I'm also definitely here for Theo shipped with anybody else—say, Markus, perhaps intending to manipulate him by faking interest at first, but then oops, real feelings happen?

      ::  Or give me Theo/Jeremiah—I adore how prickly their back-and-forth with each other can get, and how well they can keep up with each other when they try!

      ::  Or Theo/Elizabeth, with all the messiness of Simon's death hanging between them, Elizabeth's gentleness-but-strength vs Theo's sharp-edges-but-feelings?

      ::  Or Theo/Kurdy—maybe Theo hitting on him and him always refusing, doubly so after Elizabeth's death, becomes A Thing ... until one day he finally says yes instead? :D

      ::  Or anybody else you're interested in shipping her with! Theo/Jeremiah/Kurdy, Theo/Kurdy/Elizabeth, Theo/Erin/Markus ... Mr. Smith! Libby! HATESEX WITH LEE CHEN. Anything!

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Mara: Daughter of the Nile

Inanni, Mara

I adore this book and I couldn't resist asking for it again this year! I'm requesting Mara and Inanni specifically, because they were my favorite things about the book—but I'd be happy with a story about both of them OR either one of them alone, and I love Sheftu and would be thrilled to see him, either way. I love Mara's cleverness and willpower, but also her pride and her temper; I love Inanni's sweetness and generosity, but also her timidity and uncertainty. The book's setting and aesthetic are the cherry on top (but you definitely don't need to do any research or make an exhaustive effort to achieve historical accuracy; by all means use only the information presented in canon, and leave it at that!).

I'd be delighted with anything you wanted to write me about either or both of them: backstory for Mara, or a young Inanni in Canaan? More of Inanni's POV on arriving in Egypt and adjusting to this strange new place—or a missing scene from Mara's perspective? Post-canon with Mara adjusting to her new rank! Inanni finally getting to go home afterward! Or an AU where Inanni's stuck marrying Thutmose after all, but manages to keep Mara as a personal servant? A thousand words of them just hanging out in the gardens and talking to each other! GO FOR IT. :D I would love Mara/Sheftu, banter and prickly flirting, or domestic bliss post-canon; or Mara/Inanni, from the faintest hint of feelings that go carefully unacknowledged to Mara offering Inanni some ~physical comfort~ to help ease her homesickness—or Mara/Sheftu/Inanni, for that matter!

I'm so fond of this book, I couldn't help but request it again! The main characters are so well-rounded, everybody with their own skills and flaws and blind spots, and even the ~dastardly Hatshepsut gets a moment to be awesome at the end! I know I mentioned this briefly already, but just to elaborate a little: historical accuracy is welcome but absolutely not required; our current knowledge of Hatshepsut's reign (at least as I understand it) ... um, differs somewhat from the book's presentation. :D So just running with the foundation the book provides is totally fine with me, and you definitely shouldn't feel like you have to do any extra research to write me a Mara gift I'll love!

Mara

Mara contains multitudes: she's so smart but also so shortsighted, thoughtful sometimes and unkind other times, impulsive and dramatic but brave and determined. And how much does my id love her gorgeous blue eyes, sass, and self-sacrificial silence even under the pain of a whipping? SO MUCH, is the answer. :D Her confidence and cleverness are so wonderful, but I adore her all the more for her imperfections—how overwhelmed she is by her feelings for Sheftu, how little she minds lying, how ambitious and unapologetic she is. MARA.

  •  Honestly, I'd love anything about her daily life around or before the beginning of the book!

      ::  Her skill with Babylonian and other ways it's served her?

      ::  Times and places she's snuck off to read?

      ::  More pranks she's played like her mockery of the man in the street and her stealing those cakes!

      ::  Any previous friends she's made (and then lost, if they were sold ;-;)?

      ::  Acquaintances she's had, daydreams she's dreamed, trouble she's gotten into?

  •  Most of the book is in her POV—but there are parts that aren't, and/or timeskips where I would love to see missing scenes filling in the gaps!

      ::  Dive into part of that early montage of her and Sheftu traveling on the river-boat?

      ::  Or deeper into her arrival at the palace, adjusting to the pretense of nobility!

      ::  Did she get to know or talk to any of Inanni's other attendants at any point?

      ::  What quiet moments did she have, in the palace or at the inn, and how did she fill them?

  •  Or go post-canon, and explore what it's like for her to really adjusting to her change in circumstances over the long term!

      ::  I can see her immediately buying herself every luxurious thing she can think of ...

      ::  ... just as easily as I can see her continuing to run around barefoot all the time. :D

      ::  Sheftu's presumably still an advisor to Thutmose; do he and Mara get embroiled in additional court shenanigans?

      ::  Or something simpler: the day Mara has to say goodbye to Inanni? ;-;

  •  Or fork-in-the-road things from any point you like:

      ::  What other ways could Mara and Sheftu have met, if Mara had never been sold?

      ::  Or if the revolution had gone ahead anyway, and had gone well? Or had gone badly?

      ::  Or if Sheftu and the revolutionary group had been caught and punished—could Mara have helped him escape? ("Yes" and "no, and she ends up having to stand there and watch him be executed": equally valid answers!)

      ::  If they'd met when they were older, Mara even less trusting and Sheftu even cagier? (And, again, totally happy for the answer to this to end in happy Mara/Sheftu ... or in Mara, you know, flirting with Sheftu and then stealing everything he has on him and also reporting on the revolution to Hatshepsut.)

      ::  Or what if Mara had stayed Inanni's attendant, and gone back to Canaan with her?

  •  And obviously pretty much any of those prompts could go in a Mara/Sheftu or Mara/Inanni direction, but I would absolutely be happy with 1k of pure shipfic:

      ::  More Mara/Sheftu! Never enough Mara/Sheftu! I adore their whole prickly tempestuous/teasing dynamic, especially the struggle they go through trying to sort out how much they can trust each other—anything you'd like to set early in the book when they still haven't figured each other out would be great!

      ::  But I'm also definitely here for post-canon established Mara/Sheftu, too, from the fluffiest post-canon domesticity as Mara learns how to run a household of her own to smut, kidfic, either of them on their deathbed and the other struggling to handle it ...

      ::  And, as noted, I'm also very much into Mara/Inanni! I would love anything from Inanni realizing she's got a crush and resigning herself to it (;-;) to something that takes tropey advantage of their relative positions.

      ::  Does everyone assume Inanni's making good use of her pretty blue-eyed handmaiden, to the point where Mara's a little insulted Inanni hasn't? :D

      ::  Or does Mara realize she's getting a little too invested in helping her shy awkward mistress make a good impression?

Inanni

Inanni! I loved Inanni basically the moment she appeared on-page; I can only imagine how bewildering it was for her to be in this unfamiliar place with all these customs she doesn't understand and no one who's willing or able to explain, and her sheer relief at meeting Mara was just so relatable. ♥ She tries so hard but is so shy, wants so much to just go home—and then, over the course of the book, grows that least bit more sure of herself, starts to understand what's going on under the surface around her and figures out how to help Mara in what small ways she can.

  •  I would be thrilled to get pre-canon fic about earlier parts of Inanni's life in ancient Syria, but I realize that's a thing the book really didn't get into or establish a baseline for, so no pressure.

      ::  For the record, though: anything about her family or her life there?

      ::  Her relationships with her regular handmaids (how was her entourage for the trip to Egypt chosen? Did she have any input?)

      ::  What were the circumstances that got her sent to Egypt in the first place? How did she learn it was happening, and how did she feel about it?

      ::  What did the rest of her family think, and did they have any advice for her about how to handle the journey?

      ::  What did she bring with her: clothes, personal belongings, childhood toys ... How did she choose what to take, and what to leave behind?

  •  And anything set during the book from Inanni's POV would be fantastic, too!

      ::  The actual trip to Egypt! How did it go? Did they run into any trouble on the way? What was Inanni expecting Egypt to be like?

      ::  How was she handling it before Mara arrived on the scene—and how blissful was her relief when she realized there was finally somebody who could explain to her what the hell was going on? :D

      ::  What did she think of the palace the first time she saw it? Or Thutmose? Hatshepsut?

      ::  And anything about what was happening to her/whether she had any idea what was going on elsewhere, set toward the end of the book, would be wonderful!

  •  Or, of course, post-canon—or an AU that goes in any direction!

      ::  Does she actually get to go home to Canaan?

      ::  Is Thutmose considering trying to pass her along to some lesser prince or noble to marry, maybe as a bargaining chip to use against Canaan politically ... and then Mara and Sheftu intervene, because they know she doesn't want that?

      ::  What is the trip back like for her, and what's changed by the time she returns?

      ::  What does she tell her family/her people about her trip and Thutmose's refusal to marry her? (Is it a problem or not?)

      ::  Or—what if Thutmose had married her? How would that have changed things for her, and how would she have felt about it?

      ::  Also definitely here for an AU where, say, Egypt conquers Canaan instead, and Inanni's taken as a slave—and meets Mara that way?

      ::  Or make it a full-on role reversal: Inanni's the slave who ends up attending to Mara, instead of the other way around (and is pleased and surprised when her mistress turns out to know her native tongue? :D)!

  •  For Inanni shipfic, I'd be thrilled with Mara/Inanni, or the OT3! (Which, any of the above prompts taken in either of those directions would be A+, for the record.)

      ::  For Mara/Inanni, I'd love anything that expands a little on their relationship in the book: missing scenes of getting to know each other better, sharing stories from their childhoods, talking about their pasts and their parents and where they came from?

      ::  Mara helping Inanni with her hair! Or showing her how to put on Egyptian makeup, sparking a pile of accidental UST ...

      ::  And if you'd like to write me 1k of the AU where *waves hands* Mara somehow is the Egyptian noblewoman Inanni's been sent to Egypt to marry, I'd be all over that!

      ::  Or, in the AU where Inanni's stuck with Thutmose for real instead of being sent home—is Mara the only thing that makes her married life bearable? ;-;

      ::  But! I also would never say no to Mara/Sheftu/Inanni—post-canon where they end up visiting her in Canaan?

      ::  Or maybe something happens and she can't be sent home right away, but she doesn't particularly want to stay in the palace ... so she ends up living at Mara and Sheftu's estate instead? :D

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Tidelands (TV)

Calliope "Cal" McTeer

There are SO MANY THINGS that interest me about this weird little show—but at the end of the day, Cal is my fave, and I'd be over the moon to get a gift about her! Anywhere you want to start, and anywhere you want to take it: missing scenes or episode tags? Backstory set during her childhood, while her dad was alive or when she first went to prison? Or whatever you think should happen next after that unbelievable cliffhanger of a finale? AU where Cal never went to prison! Or where she ended up at Orphelin Beach much earlier! Fix-it where NOBODY dies, thank you very much!

And I also ship basically all the things here, so if you'd like to write some canon-compliant Cal/Dylan or Cal/Corey, definitely do that—more sex with accidental siren powers involved? All the feelings conversations they didn't get to have during the show? BUT I would also love some messy power-tripping manipulative Cal/Adrielle, or Cal/Augie not-technically-incest-but-it-still-feels-like-it-is, or Cal/Leandra or Cal/Violca seduction or hatesex. And if you want to delve into more siren lore, or tell me all your headcanons about summonings and water magic and what sirens actually think of their abandoned half-human children, feel free!

I have kind of a thing for mermaids in general, but also specifically for mermaids as wildly dangerous and/or kind of terrifying, and this show fascinated me—there's some pretty soapy twists and turns, and also some hilariously unnecessary sex. But at the same time it did such an intriguing job with the Tidelanders and their community, its structure and its (sometimes terrifying) rules, the sirens and the Tidelanders' longing for them. The whole show is so appropriately moody and beautiful and kind of wild, and I ended up really loving it, even if that finale absolutely murdered me with bewilderment.

Cal McTeer

And one of my favorite things about it was definitely Cal! Her angsty backstory is so amazing and messed up in all my favorite ways, and her homecoming is so believably awkward and difficult and painful. ♥ Her journey toward starting to learn some of the secrets that have been kept from her, and starting to understand herself—being able to use her powers, and even wanting to, and the push-pull between enjoying it and being terrified of it ... I LOVED ALL OF THAT, and Cal is great, the end.

  •  So! Anything you'd like to explore about Cal and her life at any point—I'm here for it!

      ::  Her childhood while her dad was still alive, not knowing where she'd come from; were there hints that piled up, despite her dad keeping her away from water?

      ::  Or the fire, and going to prison, adjusting to it—and then having to try to figure out how to live life outside of it again?

      ::  Or, of course, Cal's perspective on the Tidelanders! Does she feel drawn to Dylan, to Adrielle, to L'Attente? Is it reassuring or scary—or both—to finally understand why she's never quite felt like she belonged?

      ::  Or the runup to the ending! Anything about what it's like to make that guy drown himself, realizing that she liked it, admitting it to Augie—stabbing Adrielle, trying to save Augie, the sirens ...

  •  And I would love to know what you think about what might happen next, too!

      ::  Obviously the cliffhanger gives you a jumping-off point, if you want it—what do the sirens do? Who lives, and who dies?

      ::  Are the sirens willing/intrigued to have been summoned ... or not so much?

      ::  How do the Tidelanders react? Has Adrielle strengthened her position as queen—or does it become clear the sirens came for Cal, not her?

      ::  But feel free to go further and tackle new problems, and let me piece together what must have happened on that beach retroactively!

      ::  More struggles in dealing with Augie's ... business? Trying to survive whatever Adrielle's got in mind next, now that she has in fact succeeded in her original goal?

  •  Or go in another direction entirely:

      ::  What if Cal had never gone to prison—if Augie had taken the fall, maybe, with a false confession? Or if crucial evidence had gone un-tampered-with?

      ::  Or if she'd fled from the police (and ended up stumbling all the way to the Tidelanders, maybe)? How else might she have learned what she was?

      ::  What if Dylan had decided to full-on side with Cal over Adrielle earlier? (Or what if Cal had been able to make him—compel him, with some queenly power she hadn't even known she had?)

      ::  Or if Violca had deliberately sought her out and befriended her before Dylan could, in an effort to defy Adrielle sooner?

      ::  Or if she'd been able to save poor Colton—or met Gilles and Bijou earlier, and Bijou's drawings had helped her guess a few more things that were coming?

      ::  What if she actually had killed Adrielle—how would the rest of the Tidelanders have reacted to her as queen? (I'm equally interested in principled queen Cal who's not going to make people gouge each other's eyes out anymore ... or a darker Cal who starts to indulge the part of her nature that enjoyed making a man helplessly drown himself. :D)

      ::  Or, of course, fix it: let her succeed in forcing Corey's blood back inside him and keeping his heart beating, in the morgue! Let Dylan leave Adrielle to die and stick with Cal! Let her save Bijou and Augie! (With the sirens' help?)

  •  And I'd love it if you were interested in shipping Cal with ... just about anybody, really!

      ::  I absolutely ship Cal with both Corey and Dylan, so I'm here for either pairing, or both continuing to occur at once in a V, or an actual straight-up poly formation where Corey and Dylan also bang!

      ::  I'm also weak for incest and pseudo-incest, and Augie and Cal have such a compellingly strong relationship with each other—I'd love something leaning into how weird it is to learn they aren't biologically related, and UST they'd repressed or brushed off before is suddenly palpable ...

      ::  AND THEN ALSO I would be delighted to read about fucked-up manipulative Cal/Adrielle (such a UST vibe! Adrielle like half trying to win Cal over and half trying to achieve some kind of control over the potential threat she poses! *_____*)

      ::  Or! Cal/Violca—where Violca seduces her before Dylan has a chance? Where Violca's trying to get someone else to take Adrielle on first so she can step forward in the aftermath? (Does it work? Or does Cal do better than expected, and suddenly Violca's got to keep her favor instead?)

      ::  Cal/Leandra? Maybe Leandra finds Cal first in the morgue, not Corey, and Cal uses her abilities to force Leandra to submit to her? How does that change the endgame?

      ::  For any of the pairings above, if you want to play up the whole "queen" thing/potential additional Tidelander powers in a femdom plus-or-minus dubcon way, feel free. :D

      ::  Or go any other tropey direction you like: do Tidelanders grow secret sex pollen plants? Soulbond to each other, or to humans? Have soulmates? :D

  •  And I'm adding an extra set of prompts because there is so. much. worldbuilding here that I'd love to see explored! So if you feel like digging into any of these elements some more, in combination with another prompt or standalone, that would be AWESOME:

      ::  I would LOVE anything you want to tell me about the sirens' history—more about the translation of the text on the artifact, the legends about the horn and armies of women from the sea ... 1k of fictional documentation about a couple pieces of the horn, or an excerpt from an analysis of several variations on the sirens' appearances in mythohistory? :D

      ::  Anything with Cal involved that delves a little deeper into the nature of sirens and where they come from (if there are no siren dudes, and when they bang human dudes they dump the babies ... can select Tidelanders be made into full sirens, if the sirens choose to do so? Or is it more mythological—sirens carve new sirens out of stone, or something?)

      ::  Or just dive in and tell me all about the original mythohistorical conflict, what happened and how; the original breaking of that horn and who did it, the scattering of the pieces ...

      ::  Or anything focused on the Tidelanders and their community: how separate they are, how separate they feel, the juxtaposition of the desperation to reach out for their mothers and the awareness that their mothers abandoned them.

      ::  The massacre! Their social structure! Their rules are so interesting, and obviously also kind of creepy/brutal: the eye-gouging, Adrielle's determination to make them all believe they can't have kids with humans, succession among queens ...

      ::  Or their magic! The water-lock on Adrielle's little basement of surprises was super cool—please tell me all about how it feels to control water, including the water in blood, and to breathe it. Or to entrance people, for that matter!

      ::  And then there's Bijou and Genoveva, with their apparent precognition; how does that work? Are there other "extra" talents that some Tidelanders have and others don't?

      ::  Or maybe full-blooded sirens can see the future even more clearly? (Is that why they came to the shore for Cal and not for Adrielle—because they saw that it would be her, and that mattered somehow?)

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I really hope you didn't arrive at this paragraph by reading that whole entire thing, but if you did ... I'm so sorry? /o\ Thank you for taking the time—I can only hope at least some of that was useful and/or inspiring. Have a fantastic Yuletide! ♥

Even longer than usual, somehow ...

In General

The Big Country (1958)

Any (James McKay, Steve Leech)

James McKay

Steve Leech

Jim/Steve

Dark Matter (TV)

Misaki Han-Shireikan, Nyx Harper, Three, Two

Misaki Han-Shireikan

Nyx Harper

Three

Two

The Huntsman (movies)

Ravenna

Ravenna

Jeremiah (TV)

Theo Coleridge

Theo Coleridge

Mara: Daughter of the Nile

Inanni, Mara

Mara

Inanni

Tidelands (TV)

Calliope "Cal" McTeer

Cal McTeer

no subject

no subject