Fandom 5K 2018

[burglebezzlemen]

I’m so excited to be signing up for Fandom 5K again, and I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

The number of prompts I came up with for each canon/each character or ship is in no way correlated with my enthusiasm. I am super-into all of these requests and I’d be thrilled by any one of them. Also, while I tried to include a lot of prompts, please feel free to go with a general like or something instead. Some of my favorite gifts have been the ones that took my general likes in directions I never would have thought to prompt.

For style, I'm open to any tense, including future. I enjoy epistolary fic, including fic set on the internet, fic in the form of a legal brief or decision, and found document collection fic. I can sometimes find it harder to get into (non-epistolary) first-person fic for canons not written in first, but I’m ultimately open to whatever POV you feel the fic needs. 

GENERAL LIKES | DISLIKES AND DNWs | GHOSTBUSTERS (2016) | GIANT DAYS | HART OF DIXIE | HIDDEN LEGACY | HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER

General Likes

• Slice of life


• Domestic scenes


• Cooking and food


• General shenanigans and hijinkery


• Outdoor activities and the great outdoors


• Characters solving problems


• Established relationships


• Get-togethers


• Epistolary fic


• Outsider POV


• Small towns, whether heartwarming or creepy


• Ghost stories


• Cryptids


• Cursed objects


• Thrift score/eBay purchase gone wrong


• Someone gets turned into an unusual animal


• The Hangover and/or Waking Up In Vegas plotlines


• Someone is accidentally drugged; someone else takes care of them


• Gothic themes, whether subverted or played straight


• Exploring new places together


• Vacations gone awry


• Groundhog Day/time loop


• Cross-time communication, where something like a journal/letterbox/website/whatever is able to let characters communicate across time


• Alternate universe body swap, where characters from the canon universe we know are swapped or transferred to an alternate universe and have to find their way back


• Stuck in the bathroom/elevator/wherever


• Characters coming up with MacGyver-style solutions to problems


• Trapped/stranded by the weather


• Abandoned houses, whether exploring or fixing them up


• Five Times fic


• State-Mandated Ghost Hunting AU


• Undercover as a couple


• Casefic, including unusual cases


• Who’s sending poison pen letters/emails?


• Finding someone’s favorite [thing] after it’s been lost


• Someone experienced or saw something impossible; someone else tries to explain it


• Art forgery and theft


• That fic where the characters have to go to a remote island or resort, possibly while pretending to be a couple, in order to investigate a haunting/why everyone has been invited and someone’s killing them off one-by-one/other mystery here

General dislikes and DNWs

A few things I tend to be less interested in: I’m not generally interested in pregnancy or kidfic (except for kidfic for HIMYM, whch is fine). I’m not interested in crossovers or mundane AUs unless prompted. I tend not to go for issuefic or reader fic. Finally, I sometimes find ghost cats upsetting, so I would prefer fic not focus on ghost cats. (I know that’s a weird one, but with a Ghostbusters request, I figured it was worth mentioning.) Living cats and non-cat ghosts are awesome, though!

I tend to prefer canon-typical levels of sexual content, which for these canons would mean nothing explicit. That being said, if you need to include a scene that’s a step above fade-to-black for reasons of the plot, I totally get it! I’m just not interested in smut/porn as the main focus of the fic.

My DNWs for these canons:

• Dubcon, noncon, underage, or fic focusing on explicit porn/kink content


• Major character death (although temporary MCD or minor character death in service of a casefic are fine)


• Terminal illness


• Cannibalism


• Animal harm/cruelty


• Aro and/or ace Abby in Ghostbusters


• Dead or dying Tracy in HIMYM

Ghostbusters (2016)
Abby & Erin & Holtz & Patty, Erin/Abby, Abby/Holtz, Erin/Holtz, Holtz/Patty

I love Ghostbusters! The characters are all amazing, and I love getting a chance to spend more time with them. Also, I love fic about ghosts.

I’m not interested in poly ships for this canon, but I’m fine with past Abby/Erin or Abby/Holtz being mentioned in a fic about a different pairing. I love Kevin, especially as comic relief, but I don’t ship him with any of the Ghostbusters. I also like Jennifer Lynch and seeing the Ghostbusters going up against the Mayor’s office, or dealing with press stuff, or whatever.

I tried the Everyone Answers the Call crossover comics, and wasn’t familiar enough with the other teams to get into it, so I’m not really interested in crossing over another Ghostbusters team. However, if you wanted to cross Ghostbusters (2016) over with my HIMYM request, with Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, or with the Stefon sketches from SNL, any of those could be interesting. (Half of the clubs Stefon recommends have to be, like, mega-haunted, Y/Y?)

For other tie-in materials, I’ve read Ghosts from Our Past (the tie-in book), and I’m following the Answer the Call comics from IDW, which have been really fun. Feel free to include material from either if you’ve read them — and if you haven’t, no worries!

For this canon, I DNW aromantic and/or asexual Abby. If you’re writing a ship that doesn’t involve Abby, I’m fine with Abby being single or dating someone either on- or off-screen, or with her love life just not being mentioned. 

Thoughts on specific Ghostbusters

I’m always a sucker for Holtz’s new inventions and Holtz setting things on fire. Holtz letting down her hair, or someone else taking down her hair for her when she’s injured or incapacitated. Holtz dancing.

I love Abby. I love her earthy sense of humor and the fact that she never gives up on what she believes, even when everyone is laughing at her. I want to see her get the perfect soup and not know what to do with it.

I love Patty’s mix of kindness and unwillingness to take shit from people. I’d like to see more of her historical research and how it fits in with the Ghostbusters’ overall research program now that they’re being funded by the city.

For Erin, I love seeing her get to wear comfortable clothes, and seeing her realize that she’s being taken seriously by other scientists.

Thoughts on specific ships

Abby & Erin & Holtz & Patty: I love these characters together! Anything canon-typical would be amazing, or something about them getting the firehouse and their business set up, or something about their friendships with one another, as they get to know one another better. 

Abby/Erin: I came out of Ghostbusters shipping Abby/Erin hard. Erin literally throws herself into a vortex to save Abby? Yes, please! I love their history together, the way it’s tough but they manage to find their way back to one another. 

I am less interested in backstory fic for these two — I want to see where they go next!

Abby/Holtz: I love how close they were at Higgins! They both had tough times — Holtz with the lab accident that stopped CERN from hiring her, Abby with Erin leaving — but they met one another and grew their own working relationship, and became stronger together, which I love seeing. I also love stuff set after the movie, where their relationship grows and changes as the Ghostbusters move into the next phase of their work together. 

Holtz/Erin: Holtz flirting with Erin in the movie just slayed me. I have watched the Debarge dancing scene way too often, and I always want more. I especially like mutual pining for these two. I’m not always convinced by the trope, but with these two? I totally buy it. Holtz is so out there that it’s always a surprise when her softer, more vulnerable side shows up, and it kills me every time. 

Holtz/Patty: I love these two together. Patty goes with the flow, while Holtz IS the flow, and simultaneously is overthinking things on about eighteen different levels. I love Patty’s acceptance of Holtz, because I get the feeling that isn’t something Holtz is used to. And I’d love to see Holtz get a chance to take care of Patty, because that is my jam.

Prompts (for any ship or for gen)

• I love canon-typical in this canon. Busting ghosts, solving problems both scientific and paranormal. NYC-based stuff is great, too — I love the kind of weird history that might show up on something like Scouting NY. (Side note: I’m reasonably familiar with the city, but I don’t live there, so no worries if you take liberties with NYC-based stuff.)


• A trip out of town to bust ghosts or investigate paranormal phenomena could also be great. Potential settings:


• Camping in the murder woods


• Castle or old estate in a remote area


• Oceanside or lakeside cabin


• Haunting in a museum or living history town


• Island (look, I am easy and island ghosts are my JAM)


• Casefic where they initially assume it’s ghosts, but it ends up being some other paranormal phenomenon, like a place where time runs weirdly, or a cryptid, or [insert other paranormal thing here].


• Someone gets accidentally drugged (or something like being drugged — feel free to handwave paranormal reasons for this); someone else has to take care of them.


• Dude, Where’s Ecto 1: The Ghostbusters wake up somewhere unexpected, with fuzzy memories, and have to unravel what happened. Is it a paranormal event?


• Bedsharing is great for any of these ships. Someone’s apartment is uninhabitable (let’s face it, Holtz probably destroys apartments on the regular), or they’re traveling and there’s only one bed.


• Fake dating for a bust or for publicity reasons (meddling!Jennifer Lynch!)


• I love accidental marriage fics in this canon. Vegas Wedding it up, or have a “wait, the paperwork went through on that?” marriage for Abby/Erin or Abby/Holtz!


• A bust goes wrong, and two Ghostbusters end up in an unexpected survival situation. (Maybe one of Holtz’s inventions unexpectedly teleports them somewhere… or somewhen!)


• Didn’t Know They Were Dating, esp. with Holtz, who I feel this trope is basically made for.


• Something paranormal happens, and as a result, A can't touch B. (Maybe an accident in Holtzman's lab leaves someone negatively-charged ionic blah blah science words that mean they can't touch other people or someone will die. Maybe someone accidentally gets turned into a spirit version of herself and has no mass. Handwave freely.) A doesn't realize how much she wants to touch B until it's suddenly no longer an option... but can the Ghostbusters figure out how to fix this terrible paranormal situation which is totally not an excuse for touch-starvation and angst?


• Patty buys a research book on eBay that turns out to be haunted. Seriously, seriously haunted.


• During renovations on a city building, workers break into an unknown chamber. Everything seems fine, until the workers start doing inexplicable things, like building a pyramid in Central Park/attempting to sacrifice a statue/other weird thing here. The Mayor asks the Ghostbusters to investigate.


• Or for more of a horror casefic, maybe someone shows up at the Firehouse claiming to be one of Holtzmann’s relatives — and it isn't until later that Patty (or Abby or Erin) realizes that Holtz doesn’t have any living relatives. Who (or what) is staying with the Ghostbusters? What’s their agenda? And most importantly, why did Holtz claim to recognize them?

Giant Days
Daisy, Esther, Susan

I got into this comic recently, and I love it. So freaking much. Daisy and Esther and Susan are all great, and I love their friendship. 

McGraw/Susan is my OTP in this canon, and I also like Esther/Ed. I kind of love Ingrid/Daisy as a terrible, terrible idea, but I know that Ingrid is only getting worse, so make of that one what you will (and Daisy/Ingrid breakup fic is A-OK). I’m also open to Daisy/OFC and Esther/OC. While I don’t trio ship the main three, I could potentially be here for Daisy/Susan, Susan/Esther, or Daisy/Esther, if one of those is your jam. But really, my biggest ship in this canon is their friendship! Gen fic about canon-typical shenanigans would be amazing. :D

I’m currently up through issue #36, and spoilers past that point are totally fine. I have read both of the Christmas specials. I haven’t read the first three issues, the ones Allison drew (yet, they’re getting collected later this year!), but I am familiar enough with the events that took place in them that references to those won’t confuse me. Also, if you’ve only read part of the canon so far, that’s totally fine — I’m interested in stuff set anywhere in the story. :D

If you’re familiar with the Greater Tackleford Universe, I’ve read Bobbins (original flavor, Bobbins.horse, and New Bobbins), Bad Machinery, and Destroying History. I haven’t read Scary Go Round. If you want to pull someone in from the larger universe, I especially love Shelley and Amy. 

Some potential story ideas:

• The flat is haunted. Esther is delighted at first, but it turns out the ghost has more in common… with DAISY??


• Esther buys something at a boot sale, only to discover it’s cursed. At first she hopes it’s good cursed, but events suggest otherwise.


• The gang investigates a cryptid/campus legend.


• The gang takes the wrong bus again and ends up somewhere mysterious, forcing them to find their way back.


• Esther decides she needs practical skills, and goes along with Daisy on an archaeological dig. It goes about as well as you’d expect. 


• Futurefic in which Daisy is marrying an OFC. Maybe Esther accidentally invites Ingrid — or maybe Esther’s concerned that Daisy’s making a mistake by marrying someone dull and boring, and “accidentally” invites Ingrid. Or maybe the wedding venue is damaged by a natural disaster, and it’s Daisy’s Brownie skills and McGraw’s construction skills to the rescue!


• Time travel. Someone travels to their future(s), realizes the three friends are no longer close, and comes back to the present to Fix Things. Or time travel for some other reason!


• Daisy and Esther organize a party for Susan (finishing her vocational medical training? birthday? engagement?). What type of party could you throw for a woman for whom the perfect birthday gift is a creepy clown puppet? 


• I feel like this comic is right on my wavelength with the accidental drugging plotlines (Daisy and the Poundland cold medicine, Susan at the music festival, etc.). If that's something you’re into, keep it coming.


• For McGraw/Susan and/or McGraw & Daisy and/or Esther, Five Times McGraw’s Construction Skills Saved The Day (and one time it didn’t matter)


• If you remember the throwaway joke in an early issue about them exploring a weird hatch they found while walking on the moors? I am so intrigued by that.


• Susan’s (canonical) work experience as a PI fascinates me. What could happen to make her use those skills? Maybe Daisy or Esther don’t know they need her help… but they do.


• Daisy, post-breakup with Ingrid, explores some of the not-so-legal artforms Ingrid introduced her to as a way to express her emotions. I feel like Daisy would be really good about caring for moss graffiti, for example. Or maybe Daisy channels her frustration into sport, and becomes an ultrarunner!


• McGraw, possibly with assistance, comes up with a series of increasingly ridiculous plots to try to steal and clean Susan’s laptop.


• Esther, looking to make more money than the comics shop allows, starts a business selling glitter-stuffed envelopes for revenge delivery, and does surprisingly well. Then someone starts placing orders to be sent to Susan.


• I love Daisy’s pool skills. Seeing McGraw and Daisy bonding over that is great. :D Or maybe Susan needs pool lessons for an underworld detective thing, and asks Daisy to help her? 


• I feel like this would be an amazing canon for a State-Mandated Ghost Hunters AU!
 

• For a gen take, maybe Daisy and Susan end up as the ghost speaker and ghost fighter, and Esther is just, like, so offended not to be included. 


• Or maybe it’s an AU where Susan and McGraw haven’t yet reconciled, and they get called to serve together. Awkward! But I bet McGraw could make a mean scythe.

Hart of Dixie
Lemon Breeland

Hart of Dixie, the small town feel-good canon of my heart! I love Lemon, and I’d love to get a chance to spend some time in Bluebell. 

My main ship in this canon is Lemon/Lavon, although I also loved Lavon with AnnaBeth, who’s another favorite of mine, if you want to set something during the period when AnnaBeth and Lavon were together. I’m also intrigued by AnnaBeth/Lemon, if you’ve got an idea for that.  I adore gen in this canon, and I especially love Lemon’s friendships with AnnaBeth and Wade and her relationships with her sisters and her father.

For background ships, I’m good with Wade/Zoe or Joel/Zoe, AnnaBeth/George or Tansy/George, Brick/Shelby, Tom/Wanda, and Cricket/Jaysene, and I love Magnolia/Rose.

Also, while most of my prompts ended up on the cheerful shenanigans side, I adore Lemon-centric angst in this canon, if that’s more your jam. Or cheerful shenanigans to hide her inner Lemon angst — also great!

Some possible story ideas:

• Always and forever, my true OTP for this canon is Lemon/Shenanigans. I love her running her Machiavellian plans with anyone, whether to help the town or for some other reason. Wade? Awesome. Magnolia? Love it. Dash? Wanda? Tansy? Joel? Yes please.
 

• Bluebellians become convinced something supernatural is going on — that there’s a haunting in town, that the town’s run afoul of a curse laid by one of the town founders, etc. Lemon either thinks it’s ridiculous and tries to explain that to everyone, or ends up investigating to try to get to the bottom of things and getting sucked into the madness in spite of herself. 


• I love the way everyone in Bluebell believes in the snow curse! A story about everyone having bad luck during another snowstorm would be great. Or maybe there’s a snowstorm and everyone has good luck, and it’s creeping everyone out, because there’s obviously something really bad coming. 


• Magnolia starts dating Rose, and doesn’t want Lemon to find out. Lemon knows something’s going on, but keeps drawing the wrong conclusions. Or maybe Lemon knows, but she’s offended Magnolia doesn’t trust her enough to tell her, and goes full-on shenanigans as a result.


• Lemon is caught up in planning an event. I'm up for any wacky Bluebell event or tradition, whether it’s one we know from canon or a new one you invent!


• Lemon’s second bachelorette party is even more of a disaster than her first. Maybe it’s drama with Magnolia and AnnaBeth trying to work together. Maybe they all wake up the next morning and have no idea what happened. Maybe Burt Reynolds crashes the party. Maybe all of the above and worse.


• Lemon and Lavon settling into a home together. I’d imagine Lavon has his habits and setups, and Lemon has strong opinions — how could they make it work? Or maybe Lemon decides to renovate, and discovers something unexpected!


• Tom Long gets lost on a church retreat and comes out of the woods claiming he saw a dinosaur. As First Lady of Bluebell, Lemon gets caught up in the chaos. Does Bluebell really need an official dinosaur policy? And just what did Tom really see, anyway?

Hidden Legacy
Nevada & Arabella & Catalina

Three books were not enough, because I want more! This world fascinates me, and I love the three sisters together. :D I’d really enjoy something canon-typical here, where one of the three runs into trouble (or trouble finds her) and the other two work with her to solve the problem. 

Ship-wise, I’m good with Nevada/Rogan, and I’m not really tied to any particular ships for Catalina and Arabella. Catalina/Alessando is fine and I’d be good with Arabella/Augustine as long as Arabella’s a bit older when they get together, like maybe early-mid 20s? And I'd also be totally open to OC love interests for either Catalina or Arabella. Or no love interests at all is also great — I enjoy the three sisters together a lot. I like pretty much all the main characters, and I especially love Grandma Frida. 

I love the worldbuilding in this canon — everything around the powers, Houses, marriages, etc., but also some of the other stuff, like the magic-warped places where things don’t work the way you’d expect. 

While I’d be interested in a bachelorette party fic, I’m probably less interested in fic focused on Nevada and Rogan’s wedding/wedding planning, as I feel like that topic has been pretty well covered already.

Potential story prompts:

• I love, love, love canon-typical casefic in this world. There are so many potential problems that Nevada, Catalina, and/or Arabella could be asked to solve.


• Something happens that’s not explainable under the currently understood framework of potential powers. House Baylor is asked to investigate.


• Another artifact!


• At school, some kids ask Arabella to look into a local legend/ghost story/whatever with them. She didn’t realize what they were getting themselves into.


• Weird things start happening, and one of the sisters starts wondering if they have another power — one they didn’t know they had. 


• With Victoria in her prison, the Baylor sisters have to travel to her house to deal with things. (Like, seriously, what would her house even be like? I am so curious.) While packing up the house, they stumble across another aspect of their legacy — one they didn’t expect.


• Or on a related note to the above, maybe Victoria dies, and the Baylor sisters are left something in her will. Something they want? Something they don’t? Something terrifying? Or — given what we already know about the extremes Victoria was willing to go to — could there be another Baylor half-sister out there, who the others don’t know about?


• Catalina and her SO (whether Alessandro or an OC) are shopping for a home. Nevada probably has a lot of opinions, right? What kind of issues could come up? Or maybe Catalina is settling into their new home, and starts thinking the house is haunted. It’s up to Arabella and Nevada to figure out what’s really going on. 


• I love all the background about Herald. A fic revolving around how the emerging House Baylor gets written about in Herald could be amazing, esp. if we get to see how Nevada, Catalina, and Arabella react to all of that!


• Catalina comes across someone else who’s immune to her powers. 


• Catalina and/or Arabella get set up on a series of dates with guys with increasingly strange powers.


• An artifact unexpectedly lets one sister see how things would have turned out if she hadn’t been born with her power.


• Catalina and Arabella (and maybe Grandma Frida?) surprise Nevada with the bachelorette party she never wanted. Unfortunately, none of them expected that the swanky resort they're celebrating at is hiding a dark secret. Or maybe someone asks them to pose as a bachelorette party to go undercover for a case!

How I Met Your Mother
Marshall Eriksen

HIMYM has been a comfort watch for me for a while, and I love Marshall — and especially his obsession with the paranormal. I got an adorable Marshall & Daisy monster story for Trick or Treat, and it just made me want more!

Ship-wise, I love Marshall/Lily, and for background pairings, I ship Barney/Robin and Tracy/Ted. 

For this canon, I DNW Dead Tracy. I am fine with fic set before Ted meets Tracy, fic set before she canonically dies that doesn’t mention her being sick, and fic set in a Tracy Lives!AU. I am also fine with handwaving that she got sick and then recovered and divorced Ted, and that’s why she’s gone. I just don’t want to read about Tracy being dead or in the process of dying, even in the background.

Possible prompts on the supernatural side:

• Marshall takes the family (or the whole gang) on a trip to explore a reported haunting or cryptid sighting


• As a judge, Marshall has to hear a case involving allegations of the supernatural. Can he keep his judicial objectivity? Will he decide that as a matter of law, the house is haunted?


• Marshall starts a podcast about the supernatural and tries to interview his friends about their paranormal experiences. It goes about as well as you’d expect. (Fic in the form of a podcast transcript totally welcome for this one!)


• During their college days, Marshall, Lily, and Ted look into a campus legend.


• Marshall investigates a strange phenomenon that ends up being a prank pulled by Barney, Robin, and/or Tracy.

Non-supernatural fic would be totally awesome too! Possible prompts:

• I love running and reading about running. Did Marshall ever try to run another marathon or race? Maybe he decides to get into ultrarunning, which I can’t imagine would end well. Or what about another time when Marshall said “I can run/walk that far!” and lived to regret it?


• Where were Marshall, Ted, and/or Lily during the 2003 NYC blackout?


• Marshall gets hired to be a consultant for The Wedding Bride 3 and things go hilariously wrong. 


• Barney goes back to slap betting, because that always ends well for him. Can Lily be a neutral Slap Bet Commissioner when the slapping rights are held by her own daughter? Judge Marshall Eriksen is on the case.