Arctic Light

Three Sentence Ficathon at rthstewart - now open for prompts and fills! I've had a lot of fun with this in past years.

idproquo is open for signups for another few days. I'm doing this one!

I just need to mention that rachelmanija and I have been having IMMENSE fun with the freeform tags in the hurtcomfortex tag set.

Part of our delight is coming from the way the tagset window lists freeforms. You get them in sets of 30 or so, and the top-level listing is the tag range indicating what tags are in the group. For example:

"Anaphylaxis → Blindness"

This is leading to some absolutely delightful tag pairings, suggesting stories which are variously wonderful, appropriate, and/or plausible:

Character voluntarily takes job that will shorten lifespan → coughing up blood
Comforter Rains Down Retribution On Hurt Character's Behalf → Defenestration
Blaming Themself for the Other Being Injured → Character crying in their sleep
Bar Room Brawl → Canon-Typical Violence
Keeping the hurt secret → Miscommunication
Terminal Illnesses → Withdrawal
Injury Due to Other Character's Incompetence → Loss of Trust
Magic Curses → Non-Consensual Bondage
Stuck in a Trap → Treating wounds with unconventional materials

... suggest a story I would dearly love to write ...
Mistakenly Believes the Other is Dead → Physically Injured Character Comforting Emotionally Distressed Character
unexpected tenderness → Withdrawal
Collapsing from exhaustion → De-Powered
Hurt in enemy territory → Loss of Identity
Healer Directing Operation On Self → Impaled by Debris
Self-Loathing → Substance Abuse (hi Ward)
Character being protected isn't used to being cared about → Cold bath to bring down fever
Suicide Attempt → unexpected tenderness
Drowning → Fever

... not sure I would write but would absolutely read ...
Monstrous/Powered Character Frightens Partner But They Love Them Anyway → Orphans
Other Character Tries To Help But Can't → Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Electrocution → Feeding someone hot soup
Publicly repudiated by family → Self-Hatred

... plausible as something you might see in hurt/comfort and yet hilarious ...
Common Cold → Drinking to Cope
Spanking → Torture Victim Comforts Distressed Friend/Loved One Who Was Forced to Watch
Childbirth → coughing up blood
Corporal Punishment → Drinking to Cope

... or just suggest one of those stories where the author is clearly marching to the beat of their own id.
Drowning → Forced Prostitution
Sex to Distract Character Who's Afraid of the Dark → Swordfighting
Child Loss → Corporal Punishment
Hate Crimes → Hyper-sensitive skin
Soulmate Separation → Tattoo Gun Accident

Check out the full tag set here!

I am currently at Rachel's (we both have brightly dyed hair at present, and have now had two different people ask us if we were sisters - see visual evidence here), and last night we came up with the idea of putting all the H/C Exchange prompts in a text file, printing it out, cutting them up, and pulling random prompts out of a hat to generate our own combinations, then writing them. We put the entire prompt list on a text file and took it to a 24-hour Kinko's ... only to run into problems trying to get it to print on the copy machine, so we had to take it to the attendant and have her print it. This was followed by a conversation which went something like this:

Attendant: Which file is it?
Us: ummmmmm. The Word file?
Attendant: Could you be more specific?
Us: .... *contemplating how to describe it in the most non-specific way possible*

On the one hand, I think Kinko's attendants probably have seen FAR weirder things than two women with technicolor hair trying to print out a document containing things like "Alternate Universe - Prostitution" and "Being a hyperspace pilot shortens your lifespan and addicts you to a drug". On the other hand, I feel that there is a distinct likelihood of us featuring in some anecdote about Those Weirdos at the Late-Night Kinko's.

[Multifandom friendship fest]

Multifandom friendship fest for Valentine's Day! Gen friendship fic FTW?? I need to think of some prompts ... :D

ETA: I have finished the section of my novel I wanted to edit today (♬ this is the book that never ends, it just goes on and on my friends ♪), so let's see if I can knock out a Chocolate Box treat or two before the deadline!

Dear Author,

Thank you for writing for me! My requests tend to be long, but that's just to give you some ideas to work with. If you have a completely different idea, go for it! In general, I am very easy to please.

General likes: hurt/comfort, friendship, banter, quiet bonding moments, characters sacrificing for each other, developing friendships/relationships, established relationships, futurefic, presumed dead.

General dislikes: character death, character bashing, hopeless endings.

Since I ship/friendship Jack, Peggy, and Daniel in all combinations, I am fine if you make a gen request shippy or a shippy request gen. The one thing I would like to request is that, if you choose the slavery AU option, please keep that one gen. Otherwise, I'm good with any of it.

Mixing and matching different AUs is also something I'm totally fine with.

I adore h/c, but if you're not into it and would rather write something else, I also enjoy plenty of fic without it, so no worries there! In this particular case, I'm good with any of these characters in any h/c roles (maybe with a sliiiight preference for Jack being the one to receive h/c, but I really am good with any scenario).