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Dear Heart Attack Writer
Thank you so much! I know I'm going to love this. I would be equally happy to receive any of these. Most importantly, have fun.
General likes: hurt/comfort, fluff, angst with a happy or hopeful ending, found family, curtainfic/domesticity, characters hanging out together (getting drinks after work, playing games, etc), casefic/action, presumed dead, missing scenes, futurefic, loyalty, antagonists/rivals/enemies to friends, bickering/banter, AUs, forced cohabiting (tents, hotel rooms, only one bed). In general, two of my VERY favorite relationship dynamics are characters evolving from being hostile to friendly, with all the intermediate steps in between; and characters being "weird" about each other (ship or not) in a slightly codependent/up-in-each-other's-space way that outsiders don't quite understand. I also really love tropey fic (sex pollen! bodyswap! soulbonding! amnesia! werewolves!). I don't mind violence/gore/horror, but want an optimistic ending.
Canon pairings are always fine to include.
Do not want: Permanent death of requested characters (temporary death or a death fakeout is fine, and if a character is undead in canon they can stay that way); references to current political events or pandemics (historical events or illnesses with similar symptoms, e.g. a character running a fever, are fine).
The Falcon & the Winter Soldier
James "Bucky" Barnes & Sam Wilson & Helmut Zemo
James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson/Helmut Zemo
Helmut Zemo/Sam Wilson & James “Bucky” Barnes
What it is: 6-episode miniseries on D+. I think the more I reflect back on this show, the more I love it - the way it handles power hierarchies and varying levels of privilege (and not always in the ways you'd expect), the general sense of empathy and humanity for all of its characters.
Canon-specific DNW: Bucky and Sam merely tolerating Zemo, or outright hating him, rather than genuinely respecting and liking him. They can still be prickly and distrustful with a lot of surface antagonism and trust issues (in fact, I really like that dynamic!) but I'd like to have at least some fondness there.
There are a bunch of characters and dynamics in the show that I loved, but it was this trio that I really fell for. The show managed to hit a killer combination of features for sucking me in hard, where they hit all my redemption arc and reluctantly-learning-to-trust-each-other buttons, but didn't quite get as far as I wanted to see in canon. And so: fic!
I requested the gen version of the trio, the ship version, and Sam/Zemo with Bucky. For the record, I enjoy the other legs of the pairing trio very much (Bucky/Zemo and Sam/Bucky), and read and enjoy all three pairings, so don't feel like Sam/Zemo is my "favorite" and you can't focus on the other dynamics! I'm just particularly feeling it as a pairing right now. But especially since this is going to be a long fic, you can absolutely write something that leans as heavily as you like into the other dynamics on the team. I love them all, and I'm fine with anything from a prickly and distrustful dynamic to something close and sweet, and I'm also completely fine if all three characters aren't focused on equally. I'm also good with any kind of pairing dynamics from a V where, for example, Bucky is together with both Zemo and Sam, to a friends-with-benefits kind of thing, to a full ride-or-die OT3. Or gen, of course!
As far as the setup, I'm great with all kinds of "Zemo just happens to be out of the Raft and working with them again" scenarios; it doesn't have to be real-world plausible or even particularly explained. The story can deal directly with how/why they get him out (some of the prompts below address this) or it could just be "he's working with them now, go."
Prompts are suggestions only; feel free to do something different if you have an idea. Also, you can look back through my past letters for other ideas.
- First mission post-Raft! Where canon ends, they're not quite to the point of actually *wanting* him out of prison again, so they might need to be given a little kick of necessity: they need him for some specific reason. And then here they are, all of them dancing around the uneasy respect and maybe proto-friendship they were starting to develop on the show, but also not sure if Zemo might just up and run this time if he gets half a chance, or even outright betray them.
- You don't have to put something like this in the fic if it's not your thing, but if it *is* your thing, I really enjoy all manner of control devices and Zemo having to psychologically cope with restrictions on his freedom, from ordinary ankle monitors to cruel devices that allow his handlers to shock/torture him or severely restrict his ability to move around unaccompanied, or maybe even a literal kill switch that can poison him or make him drop dead. (I prefer if Sam and Bucky aren't completely on board with something cruel; the dynamic I like best is one where they're all kind of in it together, rather than the two of them being gleeful about the amount of power they have over him.) Like I said, if this isn't your thing, don't worry about it, but if it is your thing, you can go as wild with Collar of Angst as you want, as well as any abuse or mistreatment he might have suffered in the Raft.
- Related to the above, Sam and Bucky find out about something terrible happening in the Raft (terribly cruel experiments, that kind of thing) and have to break him out and maybe shut the whole place down while they're at it.
- Undercover! There are so many fantastic undercover scenarios you could do with these characters, such as:
• Undercover in the suburbs, possibly with extra bonus two of them pretending to be a couple (and the other like sneaking in the back door at night or living in the spare room or idk). Zemo being horrified at neighborhood potluck food and meticulously keeping the lawn trimmed, Bucky skulking around like a murdery shadow, Sam as the only one who can actually, convincingly pull this off ...
• Zemo has to pretend to betray the other two. But is it really pretend? Is even *he* sure exactly? Angst, struggling with conflicting loyalties, having to figure out where your heart really is ... all that good stuff. Especially if Zemo gets a shot at something he really wants - no-strings-attached freedom, say - in exchange for legitimately betraying them.
• Bucky has to pretend to be the Winter Soldier again, but this time, after having gotten to know him better and seeing how much of a toll it takes on him, Zemo is a lot less okay with it.
- Hurt/comfort is an absolute delight for me and I will happily take it in all scenarios, though as with other stuff mentioned above (collars, prisons, etc) if it's not your thing, don't feel like you need to include it. Some of my favorites: head injuries/concussions (and other things that cause a character to be woozy and out of it, like drugs or fever, especially someone who's normally very in control); a character taking a bullet/punishment for someone or otherwise getting hurt saving someone; drowning; presumed dead; hypothermia/huddling for warmth; stranded and injured far from help; scenarios in which everyone is injured and having to work together to get back to safety/help.
- I really love dubconny scenarios (sex pollen, drugging, bad guys made them X, trading sex/rape for partner's release, etc) as long as it isn't one member of the pairing actually causing it, e.g. Zemo drugging Sam and Bucky into compliance for example. I prefer the dubcon/noncon to be out of their control and imposed by a third party, and the involved parties to actually want to have sex with each other, whatever the scenario that gets them there, and have to comfort each other during/after.
- Zemo shows up on the run, in deep trouble and needing Sam and Bucky's help. Badly hurt, or pursued by a death squad, or the always-a-classic "poisoned with 24 hours to live" scenario ... I'm not picky.
- All three of them have various trauma and potential sources of PTSD, so anything that pushes on those weak places and forces them to confront their demons would be great. Like the three of them being caught in a building collapse, say, which might simultaneously trip off a) Zemo's PTSD from his family's deaths, b) Bucky's trauma from being confined in small spaces as the Winter Soldier, and c) Sam being unable to save Riley. Or anything else along those lines that you want to do.
- Gladiator arena! This can be as ridiculously unplausible as you want: maybe in a slightly-more-dystopic MCU, Raft prisoners are forced to fight each other to the death for televised entertainment, and Sam and Bucky intervene and find themselves having to fight too. Or they're captured by aliens - it's the MCU; it could happen! - and forced to participate in alien arena fights, while patching each other up and comforting each other between matches.
- Fake marriage grows into real feelings. Maybe one of them has to marry Zemo to get him out of the Raft, so they're genuinely married - temporarily! for work reasons! - but still have an initially adversarial relationship with each other. Extra bonus iddiness for me: he is Really Super Not Okay from being in the Raft, but tries to hide it. Perhaps Sam and Bucky were already together and so it's Extra Weird having one of them officially married to Zemo. Or this is something that Sam has to do because only Captain America has the social clout to get Zemo out of the Raft that way, but then feelings happen!
- Or maybe it's an undercover fake marriage (I loved all the identity stuff in the Madripoor episode! more like that, please!) and they inadvertently fake their way into an actual relationship. This could combine with any of the undercover prompts above. I also love fake marriages that actually stay fake, so you could keep it gen too if you want!
Island of Ghosts - Gillian Bradshaw
Ariastes/Pervica
Pervica & Vilbia
Marcus Flavius Facilis & Vilbia
Ariastes & Marcus Flavius Facilis
What it is: A 1998 historical fiction novel set in Roman Britain, in which a troop of conscripted cavalry from the losing side in one of the Roman conquests arrive in Britain to help pacify the locals. There's a three-way culture clash (Eurasian steppe tribe nomads + Roman army + native Britons) and some really likable characters from each group, reluctantly learning to like each other.
Okay, so - I love everybody in this book! Ariantes and Facilis's slow-burn mortal enemies to "I trust you with my life (but possibly not the military secrets of my people)" was lovely; I loved everything about Pervica and her farm, and the sweet mini-arc with Vilbia, and the supporting characters as well (particularly Longus, and Ariantes' bodyguards).
I would absolutely love a post-canon continuation or casefic-style fic featuring some combination of the above characters. Although I would really enjoy a fic that leans into historical details if you want to write one, I'm really not hung up on exact historical accuracy. Feel free to ignore actual future events as well, if it conflicts with the story you're trying to tell.
These are some ideas but if you have something else, go for it:
- Vilbia shows up at Cilurnum needing Ariantes' help because Facilis is in trouble and he's the only person she can think of who can help. Maybe Facilis is back to investigating some kind of conspiracy and has gone missing in the wild lands north of the Wall, or he's in prison and she needs Ariantes to help her clear his name. I would absolutely *love* some kind of adventure in the unconquered Pictish lands with the characters being hunted and perhaps injured.
- Or it could be essentially the above but without the Vilbia element - Facilis showing up needing Ariantes' help, or vice versa; the two of them in some kind of survival situation (with h/c if you like that sort of thing!) and so forth.
- Vilbia and Pervica never got to interact in canon, and I would have loved to see that! Maybe she has to stay at Pervica's farm for some reason - perhaps a slight canon AU where she ended up at the farm instead of hidden in the city, or maybe she needs to stay with Pervica and Ariantes for some reason post-canon. Pervica could show her farm things and play with the baby!
- Anything with the characters post-canon settling into their new lives. I'd be very happy with a fic that explores Ariantes' and Pervica's ventures into horse-breeding, or Facilis and Vilbia setting in at Eburacum, or anything else you want to write about.
- Hurt/comfort is always great and I will happily take it in all scenarios, though if it's not your thing, don't feel like you need to include it. Some of my favorites: head injuries/concussions (and other things that cause a character to be woozy and out of it, like drugs or fever, especially someone who's normally very in control); a character taking an injury/punishment for someone or otherwise getting hurt saving someone; drowning; presumed dead; hypothermia/huddling for warmth; stranded and injured far from help; scenarios in which everyone is injured and having to work together to get back to safety/help.
Other than post-canon adventures, the other thing I would love for this canon is a supernatural or SF AU set in the canon time period. Once again, ideas only, feel free to go wild with anything else you want to write.
- Canon setting/plot, but with magic ... perhaps different kinds of magic for the different groups? Maybe Sarmatians have wild battle magic, like being able to turn themselves into eagles or wolves; Romans have extremely regimented and hierarchal state-run magic, perhaps with ordinary plebians like Facilis not having access to much of it while the nobility has more; and Britons have magicians and can turn themselves invisible and heal people and that kind of thing. Or whatever else you want to do with this idea! I just like the idea of all the different groups having their own kinds of magic which they find as incomprehensible as the groups find each other's customs in canon.
- I love werewolves. Give me werewolves. Perhaps all Sarmatians are wolves. Maybe only Ariantes is. Maybe Pervica is, and has to bite Ariantes to turn him to save his life. Maybe Facilis is hiding this terrible secret that would have him sent to the arena if anyone knew, and then smells out Vilbia as one of his own kind, or has to shift to save Ariantes. Just - werewolves!
- Canon, but with an alien invasion. That's all they need.
- Ghosts and speaking to the dead, or taking voyages into the land of the dead, would be particularly traumatic for this group of people. Maybe someone almost dies and it's necessary to send someone to get them back from the afterlife.
- Time travel, but preferably not to the present day. Maybe there's a cave that takes them back to Stonehenge times, or some kind of weird time-slip between different periods of British or Roman history.
Never Trust a Dead Man - Vivian Vande Velde [SAFETY FANDOM]
Elswyth & Farold & Selwyn
What it is: A 1999 YA (shading toward MG) fantasy murder mystery, and perennial comfort read for me, in which the accused has to solve his rival's murder to stop himself from being executed for it, with the help of the dead man's ghost. This does not really capture the style of the book, which is hilarious - the rival is bound in the body of a bat, and they bicker constantly, while being alternately helped and hindered by the witch who gave them this chance in the first place. It's fun and ridiculous and delightful, and one of my perennial comfort reads.
What this book mainly left me craving is a sequel that deals with their adventures on the road, so please give me that! I don't have a lot of prompts to offer since the book is pretty short and I don't have a whole lot of ideas, but this doesn't mean I want this any less than the other fandoms requested.
As always, prompts are just suggestions and you can write me whatever you like as long as it takes my likes/DNWs into account!
- Bringing Farold back, for real this time. A canon-typical, slightly cracky and also somewhat serious plot that wraps around a quest for some specific artifact or place they've heard of that is supposed to resurrect the dead would be lovely. Maybe there's a series of items they have to acquire, or an island or a cave they have to find that is supposed to raise the dead - bickering the whole way, of course! Some genuine angst and h/c along the way would be great! I'd be equally happy with having it work or not work, as long as Farold doesn't end up actually, irretrievably dead (as opposed to "still dead but also a duck," as in canon, or maybe now he's a fish and they have to carry him around in a bucket, or something).
- ROAD TRIP. They will have so many ridiculous adventures. Send them to new lands: to the city, on a ship, to some kind of desert country. Put them through hell and make them worry about each other, or give them the most strange and picaresque adventures. I'll love it all.
- I think you could probably put them in any kind of typical-ish tropey or fantasy plot and have it work, with a smidge of extra bonus ridiculousness since they're them. Perhaps they have to solve a murder mystery (again), or they have to get jobs in the city (and are really bad at it - but doing their best!). Maybe they have to rescue Farold from a duck farm. Maybe they end up on a quest to save a princess in a more classic fantasyland type scenario, or run afoul of fae (and Farold is the only one who can see through their enchantments, because he's dead?). Pretty much any plot of a fantasy book or movie that you want to turn them loose on would be delightful.
- I nominated this as a gen relationship but I'm also totally fine if it ends up going in any shippy direction between the three of them. I think this goes without saying, but no actual sex involving Farold if he's not restored fully to life and humanity, please.
General likes: hurt/comfort, fluff, angst with a happy or hopeful ending, found family, curtainfic/domesticity, characters hanging out together (getting drinks after work, playing games, etc), casefic/action, presumed dead, missing scenes, futurefic, loyalty, antagonists/rivals/enemies to friends, bickering/banter, AUs, forced cohabiting (tents, hotel rooms, only one bed). In general, two of my VERY favorite relationship dynamics are characters evolving from being hostile to friendly, with all the intermediate steps in between; and characters being "weird" about each other (ship or not) in a slightly codependent/up-in-each-other's-space way that outsiders don't quite understand. I also really love tropey fic (sex pollen! bodyswap! soulbonding! amnesia! werewolves!). I don't mind violence/gore/horror, but want an optimistic ending.
Canon pairings are always fine to include.
Do not want: Permanent death of requested characters (temporary death or a death fakeout is fine, and if a character is undead in canon they can stay that way); references to current political events or pandemics (historical events or illnesses with similar symptoms, e.g. a character running a fever, are fine).
The Falcon & the Winter Soldier
James "Bucky" Barnes & Sam Wilson & Helmut Zemo
James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson/Helmut Zemo
Helmut Zemo/Sam Wilson & James “Bucky” Barnes
What it is: 6-episode miniseries on D+. I think the more I reflect back on this show, the more I love it - the way it handles power hierarchies and varying levels of privilege (and not always in the ways you'd expect), the general sense of empathy and humanity for all of its characters.
Canon-specific DNW: Bucky and Sam merely tolerating Zemo, or outright hating him, rather than genuinely respecting and liking him. They can still be prickly and distrustful with a lot of surface antagonism and trust issues (in fact, I really like that dynamic!) but I'd like to have at least some fondness there.
There are a bunch of characters and dynamics in the show that I loved, but it was this trio that I really fell for. The show managed to hit a killer combination of features for sucking me in hard, where they hit all my redemption arc and reluctantly-learning-to-trust-each-other buttons, but didn't quite get as far as I wanted to see in canon. And so: fic!
I requested the gen version of the trio, the ship version, and Sam/Zemo with Bucky. For the record, I enjoy the other legs of the pairing trio very much (Bucky/Zemo and Sam/Bucky), and read and enjoy all three pairings, so don't feel like Sam/Zemo is my "favorite" and you can't focus on the other dynamics! I'm just particularly feeling it as a pairing right now. But especially since this is going to be a long fic, you can absolutely write something that leans as heavily as you like into the other dynamics on the team. I love them all, and I'm fine with anything from a prickly and distrustful dynamic to something close and sweet, and I'm also completely fine if all three characters aren't focused on equally. I'm also good with any kind of pairing dynamics from a V where, for example, Bucky is together with both Zemo and Sam, to a friends-with-benefits kind of thing, to a full ride-or-die OT3. Or gen, of course!
As far as the setup, I'm great with all kinds of "Zemo just happens to be out of the Raft and working with them again" scenarios; it doesn't have to be real-world plausible or even particularly explained. The story can deal directly with how/why they get him out (some of the prompts below address this) or it could just be "he's working with them now, go."
Prompts are suggestions only; feel free to do something different if you have an idea. Also, you can look back through my past letters for other ideas.
- First mission post-Raft! Where canon ends, they're not quite to the point of actually *wanting* him out of prison again, so they might need to be given a little kick of necessity: they need him for some specific reason. And then here they are, all of them dancing around the uneasy respect and maybe proto-friendship they were starting to develop on the show, but also not sure if Zemo might just up and run this time if he gets half a chance, or even outright betray them.
- You don't have to put something like this in the fic if it's not your thing, but if it *is* your thing, I really enjoy all manner of control devices and Zemo having to psychologically cope with restrictions on his freedom, from ordinary ankle monitors to cruel devices that allow his handlers to shock/torture him or severely restrict his ability to move around unaccompanied, or maybe even a literal kill switch that can poison him or make him drop dead. (I prefer if Sam and Bucky aren't completely on board with something cruel; the dynamic I like best is one where they're all kind of in it together, rather than the two of them being gleeful about the amount of power they have over him.) Like I said, if this isn't your thing, don't worry about it, but if it is your thing, you can go as wild with Collar of Angst as you want, as well as any abuse or mistreatment he might have suffered in the Raft.
- Related to the above, Sam and Bucky find out about something terrible happening in the Raft (terribly cruel experiments, that kind of thing) and have to break him out and maybe shut the whole place down while they're at it.
- Undercover! There are so many fantastic undercover scenarios you could do with these characters, such as:
• Undercover in the suburbs, possibly with extra bonus two of them pretending to be a couple (and the other like sneaking in the back door at night or living in the spare room or idk). Zemo being horrified at neighborhood potluck food and meticulously keeping the lawn trimmed, Bucky skulking around like a murdery shadow, Sam as the only one who can actually, convincingly pull this off ...
• Zemo has to pretend to betray the other two. But is it really pretend? Is even *he* sure exactly? Angst, struggling with conflicting loyalties, having to figure out where your heart really is ... all that good stuff. Especially if Zemo gets a shot at something he really wants - no-strings-attached freedom, say - in exchange for legitimately betraying them.
• Bucky has to pretend to be the Winter Soldier again, but this time, after having gotten to know him better and seeing how much of a toll it takes on him, Zemo is a lot less okay with it.
- Hurt/comfort is an absolute delight for me and I will happily take it in all scenarios, though as with other stuff mentioned above (collars, prisons, etc) if it's not your thing, don't feel like you need to include it. Some of my favorites: head injuries/concussions (and other things that cause a character to be woozy and out of it, like drugs or fever, especially someone who's normally very in control); a character taking a bullet/punishment for someone or otherwise getting hurt saving someone; drowning; presumed dead; hypothermia/huddling for warmth; stranded and injured far from help; scenarios in which everyone is injured and having to work together to get back to safety/help.
- I really love dubconny scenarios (sex pollen, drugging, bad guys made them X, trading sex/rape for partner's release, etc) as long as it isn't one member of the pairing actually causing it, e.g. Zemo drugging Sam and Bucky into compliance for example. I prefer the dubcon/noncon to be out of their control and imposed by a third party, and the involved parties to actually want to have sex with each other, whatever the scenario that gets them there, and have to comfort each other during/after.
- Zemo shows up on the run, in deep trouble and needing Sam and Bucky's help. Badly hurt, or pursued by a death squad, or the always-a-classic "poisoned with 24 hours to live" scenario ... I'm not picky.
- All three of them have various trauma and potential sources of PTSD, so anything that pushes on those weak places and forces them to confront their demons would be great. Like the three of them being caught in a building collapse, say, which might simultaneously trip off a) Zemo's PTSD from his family's deaths, b) Bucky's trauma from being confined in small spaces as the Winter Soldier, and c) Sam being unable to save Riley. Or anything else along those lines that you want to do.
- Gladiator arena! This can be as ridiculously unplausible as you want: maybe in a slightly-more-dystopic MCU, Raft prisoners are forced to fight each other to the death for televised entertainment, and Sam and Bucky intervene and find themselves having to fight too. Or they're captured by aliens - it's the MCU; it could happen! - and forced to participate in alien arena fights, while patching each other up and comforting each other between matches.
- Fake marriage grows into real feelings. Maybe one of them has to marry Zemo to get him out of the Raft, so they're genuinely married - temporarily! for work reasons! - but still have an initially adversarial relationship with each other. Extra bonus iddiness for me: he is Really Super Not Okay from being in the Raft, but tries to hide it. Perhaps Sam and Bucky were already together and so it's Extra Weird having one of them officially married to Zemo. Or this is something that Sam has to do because only Captain America has the social clout to get Zemo out of the Raft that way, but then feelings happen!
- Or maybe it's an undercover fake marriage (I loved all the identity stuff in the Madripoor episode! more like that, please!) and they inadvertently fake their way into an actual relationship. This could combine with any of the undercover prompts above. I also love fake marriages that actually stay fake, so you could keep it gen too if you want!
Island of Ghosts - Gillian Bradshaw
Ariastes/Pervica
Pervica & Vilbia
Marcus Flavius Facilis & Vilbia
Ariastes & Marcus Flavius Facilis
What it is: A 1998 historical fiction novel set in Roman Britain, in which a troop of conscripted cavalry from the losing side in one of the Roman conquests arrive in Britain to help pacify the locals. There's a three-way culture clash (Eurasian steppe tribe nomads + Roman army + native Britons) and some really likable characters from each group, reluctantly learning to like each other.
Okay, so - I love everybody in this book! Ariantes and Facilis's slow-burn mortal enemies to "I trust you with my life (but possibly not the military secrets of my people)" was lovely; I loved everything about Pervica and her farm, and the sweet mini-arc with Vilbia, and the supporting characters as well (particularly Longus, and Ariantes' bodyguards).
I would absolutely love a post-canon continuation or casefic-style fic featuring some combination of the above characters. Although I would really enjoy a fic that leans into historical details if you want to write one, I'm really not hung up on exact historical accuracy. Feel free to ignore actual future events as well, if it conflicts with the story you're trying to tell.
These are some ideas but if you have something else, go for it:
- Vilbia shows up at Cilurnum needing Ariantes' help because Facilis is in trouble and he's the only person she can think of who can help. Maybe Facilis is back to investigating some kind of conspiracy and has gone missing in the wild lands north of the Wall, or he's in prison and she needs Ariantes to help her clear his name. I would absolutely *love* some kind of adventure in the unconquered Pictish lands with the characters being hunted and perhaps injured.
- Or it could be essentially the above but without the Vilbia element - Facilis showing up needing Ariantes' help, or vice versa; the two of them in some kind of survival situation (with h/c if you like that sort of thing!) and so forth.
- Vilbia and Pervica never got to interact in canon, and I would have loved to see that! Maybe she has to stay at Pervica's farm for some reason - perhaps a slight canon AU where she ended up at the farm instead of hidden in the city, or maybe she needs to stay with Pervica and Ariantes for some reason post-canon. Pervica could show her farm things and play with the baby!
- Anything with the characters post-canon settling into their new lives. I'd be very happy with a fic that explores Ariantes' and Pervica's ventures into horse-breeding, or Facilis and Vilbia setting in at Eburacum, or anything else you want to write about.
- Hurt/comfort is always great and I will happily take it in all scenarios, though if it's not your thing, don't feel like you need to include it. Some of my favorites: head injuries/concussions (and other things that cause a character to be woozy and out of it, like drugs or fever, especially someone who's normally very in control); a character taking an injury/punishment for someone or otherwise getting hurt saving someone; drowning; presumed dead; hypothermia/huddling for warmth; stranded and injured far from help; scenarios in which everyone is injured and having to work together to get back to safety/help.
Other than post-canon adventures, the other thing I would love for this canon is a supernatural or SF AU set in the canon time period. Once again, ideas only, feel free to go wild with anything else you want to write.
- Canon setting/plot, but with magic ... perhaps different kinds of magic for the different groups? Maybe Sarmatians have wild battle magic, like being able to turn themselves into eagles or wolves; Romans have extremely regimented and hierarchal state-run magic, perhaps with ordinary plebians like Facilis not having access to much of it while the nobility has more; and Britons have magicians and can turn themselves invisible and heal people and that kind of thing. Or whatever else you want to do with this idea! I just like the idea of all the different groups having their own kinds of magic which they find as incomprehensible as the groups find each other's customs in canon.
- I love werewolves. Give me werewolves. Perhaps all Sarmatians are wolves. Maybe only Ariantes is. Maybe Pervica is, and has to bite Ariantes to turn him to save his life. Maybe Facilis is hiding this terrible secret that would have him sent to the arena if anyone knew, and then smells out Vilbia as one of his own kind, or has to shift to save Ariantes. Just - werewolves!
- Canon, but with an alien invasion. That's all they need.
- Ghosts and speaking to the dead, or taking voyages into the land of the dead, would be particularly traumatic for this group of people. Maybe someone almost dies and it's necessary to send someone to get them back from the afterlife.
- Time travel, but preferably not to the present day. Maybe there's a cave that takes them back to Stonehenge times, or some kind of weird time-slip between different periods of British or Roman history.
Never Trust a Dead Man - Vivian Vande Velde [SAFETY FANDOM]
Elswyth & Farold & Selwyn
What it is: A 1999 YA (shading toward MG) fantasy murder mystery, and perennial comfort read for me, in which the accused has to solve his rival's murder to stop himself from being executed for it, with the help of the dead man's ghost. This does not really capture the style of the book, which is hilarious - the rival is bound in the body of a bat, and they bicker constantly, while being alternately helped and hindered by the witch who gave them this chance in the first place. It's fun and ridiculous and delightful, and one of my perennial comfort reads.
What this book mainly left me craving is a sequel that deals with their adventures on the road, so please give me that! I don't have a lot of prompts to offer since the book is pretty short and I don't have a whole lot of ideas, but this doesn't mean I want this any less than the other fandoms requested.
As always, prompts are just suggestions and you can write me whatever you like as long as it takes my likes/DNWs into account!
- Bringing Farold back, for real this time. A canon-typical, slightly cracky and also somewhat serious plot that wraps around a quest for some specific artifact or place they've heard of that is supposed to resurrect the dead would be lovely. Maybe there's a series of items they have to acquire, or an island or a cave they have to find that is supposed to raise the dead - bickering the whole way, of course! Some genuine angst and h/c along the way would be great! I'd be equally happy with having it work or not work, as long as Farold doesn't end up actually, irretrievably dead (as opposed to "still dead but also a duck," as in canon, or maybe now he's a fish and they have to carry him around in a bucket, or something).
- ROAD TRIP. They will have so many ridiculous adventures. Send them to new lands: to the city, on a ship, to some kind of desert country. Put them through hell and make them worry about each other, or give them the most strange and picaresque adventures. I'll love it all.
- I think you could probably put them in any kind of typical-ish tropey or fantasy plot and have it work, with a smidge of extra bonus ridiculousness since they're them. Perhaps they have to solve a murder mystery (again), or they have to get jobs in the city (and are really bad at it - but doing their best!). Maybe they have to rescue Farold from a duck farm. Maybe they end up on a quest to save a princess in a more classic fantasyland type scenario, or run afoul of fae (and Farold is the only one who can see through their enchantments, because he's dead?). Pretty much any plot of a fantasy book or movie that you want to turn them loose on would be delightful.
- I nominated this as a gen relationship but I'm also totally fine if it ends up going in any shippy direction between the three of them. I think this goes without saying, but no actual sex involving Farold if he's not restored fully to life and humanity, please.
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Unhelpfully and personally, I hope you get this one.
as opposed to "still dead but also a duck," as in canon
I should probably read this book. (I have read a couple of Vande Veldes, but not this one. I'd remember it.)
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I really want this too! I mean, I want everything in this letter, of course. But that's one I never asked for before, and I love the scenario.
I should probably read this book. (I have read a couple of Vande Veldes, but not this one. I'd remember it.)
That book is almost as bad as Torchwood for needing me to tie myself into knots to explain that when I say I don't want anyone to die, what I actually mean is that I don't want anyone any deader than they are in canon!
(It is a fun book! It's really the only one of hers I've clicked with, for some reason - I read several others, but didn't like them as much.)
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I love this scenario too! In every fandom, but in this one it works really well.
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You know, sometimes I suspect we have similar tastes in books 🤔
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You know, sometimes I suspect we have similar tastes in books 🤔
I think there's a definite possibility. 😆