Dear Author: Trick or Treat 2019
Sep. 14th, 2019 07:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
burglebezzlemenI love Trick or Treat, and I’m excited to be signing up again. I’m into all sorts of spooky and seasonal fic, and I’m looking forward to seeing whatever you create!
I love all of these characters, and I will be delighted to get a gift for any of them. If I have more prompts for a given character or canon, it just means I had more ideas and/or was requesting more characters, not that I want it more.
I’ve made some updates from my earlier requests for these fandoms, mostly to try to keep my prompts to things that are shorter-minimum-friendly, and to try to keep this letter from being hideously long(er than it already was). But in the unlikely event that you’re interested in one of my earlier prompts that didn’t get included here, go for it!
I’m also here for something different, if you have a story you’d love to tell about one of the characters I’ve requested (provided it doesn’t run into a DNW). Some of my favorite gifts have been ones I would never have thought to prompt! And I hope you also feel free to mix and match, take part of a prompt and leave the rest, etc.
GENERAL LIKES | BATTLESHIP! | DISLIKES AND DNWs | DON’T TRUST THE B | HIDDEN LEGACY | HIVE MIND | LOCK IN | THE ORVILLE | PUMPKINHEADS
General Likes
If you're interested in the Battleship community challenge, here's some items from the list that I'd be into. (Which doesn't mean I'm not potentially into other stuff on the list! These are just the things that struck me.)
18. 5 works in first person
19. 5 works in second person
26. 15 Autumn
27. 20 Halloween
28. 10 Nighttime
29. 10 Trick or Treating
30. 25 Cats
31. 20 Costumes
33. 5 Pumpkins
34. 5 Candy
39. 7 Party
40. 10 Haunted Houses
47. 5 Cemetery
48. 25 Holidays
76. 50 Ghosts
77. 20 Vampires
80. 10 Were-Creatures
81. 15 Witches
82. 15 Demons
85. 3 Selkies
86. 1 Mummy
92. 3 Grim Reapers
94. 7 Skeletons
95. 3 Devils
99. 7 Trapped
100. 3 Circus
General dislikes and DNWs
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:
Don't Trust the B: Chloe, June
I love Chloe and June. I’m totally here for gen about either one of them, or for friendship fic… or for shippiness, because I do adore Chloe/June. :D I love the way Chloe doesn’t realize she’s letting June in under her guard until she’s already in there, in some kind of reverse-corruption deal. ♥ I also love James, Luther, and Robin, if you're into Chloe or June interacting with them!
I love the episodes where Chloe reveals some unexpected soft spot, like her secret collection of Shitagi Nashi comics or her love of Charro. I also love when June discovers or uncovers a side of Chloe that Chloe didn’t know she had.
While I’m still not into PWP or explicit porn, I’d be fine with plots including dubcon kissing, cuddling, etc. between Chloe and June, which seems pretty realistic based on canon. I’m also fine with an open relationship for these two, if that’s how you see them.
-I love the episodes where the writers remember that Chloe is a con artist and give her some horrifying con to run and/or to shock June with. :D What other creative cons is Chloe running?
-June develops an unhelpful magical power.
-I love a good Vegas Wedding (or other accidental marriage) and I love a good The Hangover. This seems like a great canon for either or both.
-June gets sick and/or accidentally drugged, and Chloe has to take care of her. (Caretaker!Chloe just seems like it has a ton of potential for hilarity.)
-June gets turned into a vampire and makes Chloe into her thrall. Chloe either makes a terrible thrall, or is surprised to find she’s into it. (Side note: my cannibalism squick/DNW does not include consensual blood-drinking by vampires, so if you want to run with that, go for it.)
-Someone with a grudge against one of them is trying to act out a horror movie and invites them to a remote island or abandoned summer camp, only to find Chloe (or June! Or both of them!) flipping the script on them.
Hidden Legacy: Catalina, Arabella, Runa
Hidden Legacy! I love this canon, and I’d love a chance to see more of any of these three. I’ve read the canon through Sapphire Flames, and I keep up with the snippets posted on the blog, so no worries on spoilers here. :D
Gen is great here. If you want to include a ship or ships, I’m good with Nevada/Rogan as a background ship. If you want to work in a love interest for Catalina and/or 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? I’d also be interested in seeing more of Catalina and Runa together, whether it’s romantic or just as good friends. We didn’t see much of Runa and Bern interacting in the new book, but I could be into it if the two of them had some time to develop something. Or OC love interests for any of these characters would also be fine.
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. I also love it when a power that seems straightforward gets used in a way you don’t expect, like Cornelius’s ferret heist.
-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.
-Epistolary fic or fic in the form of a magazine article or a collection of snippets from social media could be awesome here. Or something from Herald! What sorts of fics are getting written about House Baylor? How do Arabella and Catalina react to them?
-Or maybe people on Herald start shipping Catalina, Arabella, or Runa with [OC]. She decides she wants to find out why.
-What do urban legends or creepypasta look like in this universe? I would imagine Arabella especially could inspire scary stories… or star in one as the unexpected heroine. Outsider POV and/or epistolary totally welcome!
Spoilers for the new book past this point!
-Shadow was my favorite new character in the new book. And since this is Ilona Andrews, I’m guessing that Shadow is more than she appears to be. What cool power(s) could Shadow manifest, and how? If someone other than Catalina first saw her power, would they tell Catalina, or let it be a surprise? :D
-A prompt based on this story posted on the blog: I’m fascinated by this new look at Arabella’s power and how she can separate the aspects of the Beast. How did Arabella learn that she could do that? How long has she been hiding it from her family? *Why* is she hiding it from her family? (How is she hiding it from Nevada, I mean, really....) And how do they find out? What other aspects of the Beast can she use? (…and how is she using it to collect on their overdue payments?)
-A Hidden Legacy Halloween! What would it look like? We know Arabella once dragged Catalina to the haunted mall event — what other horrible Halloween events does Arabella drag people to? Or what if the Baylors were hired to find a kid from a House who decided that they wanted to go trick-or-treating like normal kids can? (I would imagine trick-or-treating as a kid from a House would be pretty dangerous.) Do the Ettersons ever get hired to check kids’ Halloween candy?
-For the Ettersons, I found it interesting that the two paths to making money they discussed were assassinations and expert witness testimony, because to me it seems like there’d be a lot of other stuff they can do! What other personal protection gigs has Runa had to work? Do any of the Ettersons ever do research and development (like the Herbamagos Houses were doing in Wildfire), or environmental cleanup, or other stuff requiring management of toxins?
-Or show me the Ettersons finding their new home! They’ve got enough money to have options that aren’t open to the Baylors — what sorts of things are they looking for?
-Or I’d love to see the Baylors’ new compound! What kinds of places do you get shown when you’re looking for a bargain on a House compound in Houston? Do they find a great deal on something — maybe a suspiciously great deal — because it’s haunted, or has a dark past, or has some upsetting history attached? How do they clear things out to make it their own?
Hive Mind: Amber, Lucas, Buzz, Nicole
I love this series. :D I’m always here for special, special telepaths and the people who love and serve them, so this series was an easy hit right on the sweet spot for my id… and then the author threw in some really interesting worldbuilding, too.
I love how the Hive isn’t a dystopia or a utopia, but something in between — some things are obviously better than our world, and some things are obviously worse, and some things are just different. It’s a fascinating balance and I love the unique view Amber gets of that world.
Gen is great in this canon. If you want to include a ship, I love Amber/Lucas — I am rather OTP-ish about them in this canon, so I’d rather not see them break up or go through a love triangle situation, although I’m OK with seeing them with others before they get together. I’m also here for Nicole/OC, Nicole/Melisande, Nicole/Buzz, Buzz/Melisande, or Nicole/Atticus. Buzz/Forge is interesting too — I like the fact that neither of them are really certain how things are going, and the way they both have tough emotional stuff in their pasts. I’m really curious to learn more about whatever Buzz isn’t telling Amber about her own emotional damage. Buzz has a lot figured out, but I have a feeling she’s got a blind spot about her own emotions.
-Halloween fic! I’d love to see more of the Hive’s Halloween celebrations, whether that’s seeing Amber’s unit and how they celebrate, or a story that lets us see how people celebrate as families or on Teen Level. :D
-Or more about what other things people in the Hive do for fun! What sorts of hobbies do the members of Amber’s unit have? We know the Hive has the beaches and parks and stadiums — are there other public recreational spaces we haven’t seen yet? Amusement parks?
-Does Amber’s unit ever get to work on a case that seems supernatural? Or maybe one of the other characters deals with a seemingly-supernatural occurrence during their time on Teen Level. Or maybe Amber’s Unit has to fake some supernatural occurrence — seeing Nicole’s perspective as Liaison on that could be awesome.
-I’d also love to see more from Nicole’s Liaison work in general! What was the first time she had to cover something up? (Was it on Teen Level?) Does she ever feel conflicted, the way Amber does, or did Lottery select her not to have those qualms?
-More about Buzz’s backstory! It seems like she’s got some trauma that we haven’t seen yet, maybe from her family of origin, maybe not. How might that come out? Or might Amber’s unit ever get assigned to a case that stumbles into old wounds for her?
-I also adore all of the details about the Hive’s Halloween myths. If you want to leave out the requested characters entirely and show me the original team that developed the Hive’s Halloween myths, or something like the guidelines for how the Liaison team can use the Hunter of Souls when covering things up, that could be awesome. Or show me how the Halloween myths play into another Strike for our team, the way they did with the Strike at the beginning of Hurricane!
-Do teenagers ever get besotted with the Hunter of Souls as a character and write angsty poetry about being kissed by his demon breath? Like… tell me that doesn’t happen. I bet it totally happens. I’m not sure if any of our characters would have been into him, but I bet they knew a friend who was back on Teen Level. Maybe someone got roped into trying to go Outside with them to find him! What would that be like?
-While I’d rather not see Amber and Lucas break up after they get together in canon, I’m fine seeing them be interested in others on Teen Level, before they met one another. Amber and Atticus decided not to date during Carnival, but maybe they kissed accidentally while wearing masks the following Halloween! Or show me some of the dating fails that made Lucas think there would never be a person who could understand him well enough to date him. :D
Lock In: Chris Shane
I adore the world of Lock In, and I'd love to get some fic exploring the world.
I've requested Chris Shane for my requested character. I would like to note that I am happy with any amount of Chris. Outsider POV? Fic in the form of narrative investigative journalism article about one of Chris's cases, where Chris shows up briefly? Online message board where people discuss Chris? All good! Or a first-person story from Chris' POV. Also good!
For other characters, I like Leslie, Chris's parents, and Chris's housemates, and I'd be happy to see any of them show up, or even to see a story from one of their perspectives in which Chris is a side character. I'm also open to OCs. I don't ship Chris with anyone in the books currently, but if you do want an old flame OC to show up with a new problem, or in a casefic, that could be interesting!
I like what Scalzi did with keeping Chris' gender undefined, if that's possible. My preference would be keeping things similar to canon, where Chris doesn't have assigned pronouns at all. I get that it's tricky to do that, though! If you do end up needing to give Chris a pronoun, I would prefer they over he or she. I do not want Chris referred to by "it" or neopronouns.
-Vann and Chris get assigned to the Lock In universe's version of The X-Files! I would imagine Vann does NOT want to believe. :D What type(s) of cases might they be looking at?
-Urban legends! I love urban legends, and I especially love seeing them in worlds where they get wrapped up into the worldbuilding. We got to see someone die IRL when their threep got killed in Head On. What other urban legends might come true and require Chris and Leslie's attention? Or what urban legends might Chris unwittingly or deliberately inspire? What ghost stories do Hadens tell?
-How do Hadens celebrate Halloween? Do threeps let them play jokes with spoofing IDs, or is that considered in very bad taste? What about costumes for threeps?
-More tales of Chris destroying threeps! Are there super-heavy-duty threep companies that approach Chris as a test user? How do the tests go wrong? Something like an internal report about all of Chris’s prior threep destruction could also be hilarious.
-Threep epidemic. Maybe a computer virus or network thing leads to a lot of threep behavior unreliability, meaning all threeps have to be shut down. How do Hadens cope with managing their needs? How does Chris' household cope? Are there plans for this sort of situation?
-Or how do Hadens prepare for ordinary emergencies? Like snow storms, blackouts, hurricanes, etc.? I'd imagine they're more vulnerable to power cuts -- is that something Chris and his housemates are prepared for?
-Justin & Justine. I know Scalzi well enough as an author to suspect that he's never going to explain this one. I'd love to see your take on it! What's going on there?
-I also really enjoyed Tayla and Tony, if you want to write something more slice-of-life, about the housemates and what things are like when Chris isn't in the middle of a case that's going to end in destruction.
The Orville: Solana, Kelly, Lt. Kelly, Talla
I love The Orville! I’d love to get a look at Kelly or Talla’s role on the Orville. I’m also interested in learning more about Xeleya, whether that’s with Talla or Solana. While I’m not requesting her specifically for this exchange, I do love Alara, and she’s welcome to come along too.
I love gen in this canon. If you want to write a ship, I’m here for Talla, Solana, and/or Kelly getting paired with an OC of whatever gender. (Solana has a fiancé, but we know nothing about him, so feel free to go nuts there.) I also found myself shipping Lt. Kelly/Talla, if you want to explore that further. I would prefer not to see Kelly with Ed or Cassius — I don’t NOTP it, and references to past Ed/Kelly are fine, but we see so much of Kelly’s personal life revolving around Ed/the opposite of Ed in canon that I’d rather see something different for this.
-Xeleya is very into science and reason. Do they have old legends? Urban legends? Ghosts? I’d imagine Solana doesn’t believe many of them — what might she do if she encountered something she thought was impossible? Or does Talla have a secret (or not-so-secret) addiction to the Xeleyan equivalent of Ancient Aliens?
-Or I’d love to learn more about the kinds of urban legends that get passed around the Planetary Union! Have any of our cast ever inadvertently inspired one of those urban legends? (Fic in the form of in-universe creepy pasta could be amazing here, and if you go with that prompt, I’m actually fine if you want to leave the requested characters out entirely.)
-Alara and Solana go on a trip together (relaxing vacation? something for the wedding?) and get embroiled in something they didn’t expect. Or maybe it’s The Hangover in Xeleya’s equivalent of Vegas? Because I am THERE.
-Emergency response fic for Xeleya! What do hurricanes, winter storms, earthquakes, etc. look like in higher gravity? What about solar storms?
-We don’t know much about what went wrong in Talla’s prior posting, but I am super-curious. I want to see more of Talla’s backstory! What was her past ship like? How does it compare to the Orville? What led her to join the Fleet, given that Xeleyans overall tend to be skeptical of it?
-The crew stumbles across Spooky Halloween Planet, where the resident sentients are invisible or look like ghosts to human eyes. (Or maybe Talla or Kelly is the only one who sees them?) At first they assume the planet is empty, but that doesn’t explain all these perfect structures, or the weird shit that keeps happening….
-Cracky Halloween-in-the-environmental-simulator fic! Does someone run a program they shouldn’t have run and lead the environmental simulator to break its bounds and start simulating hauntings elsewhere on the ship?
-We know from the final two eps of last season that the way time travel works in the Orville universe meant Lt. Kelly had to go back… but what if it didn’t? I’d love to see an AU where they took the Thomas Riker approach, and Lt. Kelly got to stay and just be another person who happened to share a history with Kelly, but is her own person. What would that look like? How would Lt. Kelly develop into a different person from Commander Grayson?
-We know that Ed knows a ton about our era because he’s a giant nerd, but we don’t actually know why Kelly knows so much about late 1990s-early 2000s Earth culture. What if it’s not from her past marriage to Ed? What if she’s actually a time-traveler from our era, who got sucked through a one-way time portal and has to keep it a secret from everyone?
-S3 AU where the shenanigans at the end of S2 mean that Kelly’s now the Captain, with Ed as First Officer!
Pumpkinheads - Hicks and Rowell: Josiah, Deja
I picked this up on a whim when it came out recently and adored it. This is such an amazing fall canon — you couldn’t possibly stuff more autumn into DeKnock’s World Famous Pumpkin Patch & Autumn Jamboree. And I adored both Deja and Josiah (aka Josie) — their friendship, and the way they worked through figuring out where they’ll go next. :D
I’d be happy with either gen or ship — I loved Deja and Josie’s friendship, and I’d adore seeing any of their past adventures at the Patch, whether alone, together, or with others. Or if you do ship it, I’m also here for Deja/Josie!
-An exploration of some place we didn’t get to see in canon! What happens at Grandma’s Chicken Races, or the pumpkin drop or the pumpkin slingshot? Are there more attractions off the map that we didn’t see at all? Does Gourd Golf use actual gourds that have to be replaced each year?
-More about the food, OMG. I love fall and attractions like corn mazes, but I always want more than cider donuts, which is what most corn mazes in my area have. I was totally feeling what the Patch was putting down with their food concessions. I adored all of the food details, like the Freeto Pie and the cider slushees. I wanted to know every single pie this place serves (Five Pies Deja Got To Try, and one that still eludes her?). What other foods does the Patch have? We get some hints from canon that they mix up their offerings from time to time — what foods have they tried that failed miserably? And how on earth do they sell enough succotash to keep a stand open?
-Josiah and Deja come back to the Patch the following season as guests! What’s it like? What are their favorite parts?
-What if they end up going to school somewhere close enough to come back to the Patch the following year? I’d love to see either or both of them running the Haunted Hacienda!
-Or tell me about a curse or haunting at the Patch! Is the Haunted Hacienda really haunted? Does a ghost keep re-lighting the fires in the S’mores Pit after hours? Does the Patch get hit by a bad-luck jinx that circulates among the employees? (Does Josiah totally believe in it and Deja, not so much?) Or maybe the scarecrows start coming to life!
I love all of these characters, and I will be delighted to get a gift for any of them. If I have more prompts for a given character or canon, it just means I had more ideas and/or was requesting more characters, not that I want it more.
I’ve made some updates from my earlier requests for these fandoms, mostly to try to keep my prompts to things that are shorter-minimum-friendly, and to try to keep this letter from being hideously long(er than it already was). But in the unlikely event that you’re interested in one of my earlier prompts that didn’t get included here, go for it!
I’m also here for something different, if you have a story you’d love to tell about one of the characters I’ve requested (provided it doesn’t run into a DNW). Some of my favorite gifts have been ones I would never have thought to prompt! And I hope you also feel free to mix and match, take part of a prompt and leave the rest, etc.
GENERAL LIKES | BATTLESHIP! | DISLIKES AND DNWs | DON’T TRUST THE B | HIDDEN LEGACY | HIVE MIND | LOCK IN | THE ORVILLE | PUMPKINHEADS
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
- 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
- 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
If you're interested in the Battleship community challenge, here's some items from the list that I'd be into. (Which doesn't mean I'm not potentially into other stuff on the list! These are just the things that struck me.)
18. 5 works in first person
19. 5 works in second person
26. 15 Autumn
27. 20 Halloween
28. 10 Nighttime
29. 10 Trick or Treating
30. 25 Cats
31. 20 Costumes
33. 5 Pumpkins
34. 5 Candy
39. 7 Party
40. 10 Haunted Houses
47. 5 Cemetery
48. 25 Holidays
76. 50 Ghosts
77. 20 Vampires
80. 10 Were-Creatures
81. 15 Witches
82. 15 Demons
85. 3 Selkies
86. 1 Mummy
92. 3 Grim Reapers
94. 7 Skeletons
95. 3 Devils
99. 7 Trapped
100. 3 Circus
General dislikes and DNWs
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 (with an exception for Don't Trust the B as explained below), noncon, underage, or fic focusing on explicit porn/kink content. For underage, what I DNW is M- or E-rated fic for underage characters — something like T-rated shipfic for Josiah and Deja from Pumpkinheads or set on Teen Level for Hive Mind would be fine
- Major character death (although temporary MCD or minor character death in service of a casefic are fine)
- Unrequested poly, open relationships (with an exception for Don't Trust the B as explained below), or incest
- Serious or terminal illness
- Cannibalism
- Animal harm/cruelty
- Ghost cats
- For Lock In: Use of "it" or neopronouns for Chris Shane
Don't Trust the B: Chloe, June
I love Chloe and June. I’m totally here for gen about either one of them, or for friendship fic… or for shippiness, because I do adore Chloe/June. :D I love the way Chloe doesn’t realize she’s letting June in under her guard until she’s already in there, in some kind of reverse-corruption deal. ♥ I also love James, Luther, and Robin, if you're into Chloe or June interacting with them!
I love the episodes where Chloe reveals some unexpected soft spot, like her secret collection of Shitagi Nashi comics or her love of Charro. I also love when June discovers or uncovers a side of Chloe that Chloe didn’t know she had.
While I’m still not into PWP or explicit porn, I’d be fine with plots including dubcon kissing, cuddling, etc. between Chloe and June, which seems pretty realistic based on canon. I’m also fine with an open relationship for these two, if that’s how you see them.
-I love the episodes where the writers remember that Chloe is a con artist and give her some horrifying con to run and/or to shock June with. :D What other creative cons is Chloe running?
-June develops an unhelpful magical power.
-I love a good Vegas Wedding (or other accidental marriage) and I love a good The Hangover. This seems like a great canon for either or both.
-June gets sick and/or accidentally drugged, and Chloe has to take care of her. (Caretaker!Chloe just seems like it has a ton of potential for hilarity.)
-June gets turned into a vampire and makes Chloe into her thrall. Chloe either makes a terrible thrall, or is surprised to find she’s into it. (Side note: my cannibalism squick/DNW does not include consensual blood-drinking by vampires, so if you want to run with that, go for it.)
-Someone with a grudge against one of them is trying to act out a horror movie and invites them to a remote island or abandoned summer camp, only to find Chloe (or June! Or both of them!) flipping the script on them.
Hidden Legacy: Catalina, Arabella, Runa
Hidden Legacy! I love this canon, and I’d love a chance to see more of any of these three. I’ve read the canon through Sapphire Flames, and I keep up with the snippets posted on the blog, so no worries on spoilers here. :D
Gen is great here. If you want to include a ship or ships, I’m good with Nevada/Rogan as a background ship. If you want to work in a love interest for Catalina and/or 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? I’d also be interested in seeing more of Catalina and Runa together, whether it’s romantic or just as good friends. We didn’t see much of Runa and Bern interacting in the new book, but I could be into it if the two of them had some time to develop something. Or OC love interests for any of these characters would also be fine.
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. I also love it when a power that seems straightforward gets used in a way you don’t expect, like Cornelius’s ferret heist.
-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.
-Epistolary fic or fic in the form of a magazine article or a collection of snippets from social media could be awesome here. Or something from Herald! What sorts of fics are getting written about House Baylor? How do Arabella and Catalina react to them?
-Or maybe people on Herald start shipping Catalina, Arabella, or Runa with [OC]. She decides she wants to find out why.
-What do urban legends or creepypasta look like in this universe? I would imagine Arabella especially could inspire scary stories… or star in one as the unexpected heroine. Outsider POV and/or epistolary totally welcome!
Spoilers for the new book past this point!
-Shadow was my favorite new character in the new book. And since this is Ilona Andrews, I’m guessing that Shadow is more than she appears to be. What cool power(s) could Shadow manifest, and how? If someone other than Catalina first saw her power, would they tell Catalina, or let it be a surprise? :D
-A prompt based on this story posted on the blog: I’m fascinated by this new look at Arabella’s power and how she can separate the aspects of the Beast. How did Arabella learn that she could do that? How long has she been hiding it from her family? *Why* is she hiding it from her family? (How is she hiding it from Nevada, I mean, really....) And how do they find out? What other aspects of the Beast can she use? (…and how is she using it to collect on their overdue payments?)
-A Hidden Legacy Halloween! What would it look like? We know Arabella once dragged Catalina to the haunted mall event — what other horrible Halloween events does Arabella drag people to? Or what if the Baylors were hired to find a kid from a House who decided that they wanted to go trick-or-treating like normal kids can? (I would imagine trick-or-treating as a kid from a House would be pretty dangerous.) Do the Ettersons ever get hired to check kids’ Halloween candy?
-For the Ettersons, I found it interesting that the two paths to making money they discussed were assassinations and expert witness testimony, because to me it seems like there’d be a lot of other stuff they can do! What other personal protection gigs has Runa had to work? Do any of the Ettersons ever do research and development (like the Herbamagos Houses were doing in Wildfire), or environmental cleanup, or other stuff requiring management of toxins?
-Or show me the Ettersons finding their new home! They’ve got enough money to have options that aren’t open to the Baylors — what sorts of things are they looking for?
-Or I’d love to see the Baylors’ new compound! What kinds of places do you get shown when you’re looking for a bargain on a House compound in Houston? Do they find a great deal on something — maybe a suspiciously great deal — because it’s haunted, or has a dark past, or has some upsetting history attached? How do they clear things out to make it their own?
Hive Mind: Amber, Lucas, Buzz, Nicole
I love this series. :D I’m always here for special, special telepaths and the people who love and serve them, so this series was an easy hit right on the sweet spot for my id… and then the author threw in some really interesting worldbuilding, too.
I love how the Hive isn’t a dystopia or a utopia, but something in between — some things are obviously better than our world, and some things are obviously worse, and some things are just different. It’s a fascinating balance and I love the unique view Amber gets of that world.
Gen is great in this canon. If you want to include a ship, I love Amber/Lucas — I am rather OTP-ish about them in this canon, so I’d rather not see them break up or go through a love triangle situation, although I’m OK with seeing them with others before they get together. I’m also here for Nicole/OC, Nicole/Melisande, Nicole/Buzz, Buzz/Melisande, or Nicole/Atticus. Buzz/Forge is interesting too — I like the fact that neither of them are really certain how things are going, and the way they both have tough emotional stuff in their pasts. I’m really curious to learn more about whatever Buzz isn’t telling Amber about her own emotional damage. Buzz has a lot figured out, but I have a feeling she’s got a blind spot about her own emotions.
-Halloween fic! I’d love to see more of the Hive’s Halloween celebrations, whether that’s seeing Amber’s unit and how they celebrate, or a story that lets us see how people celebrate as families or on Teen Level. :D
-Or more about what other things people in the Hive do for fun! What sorts of hobbies do the members of Amber’s unit have? We know the Hive has the beaches and parks and stadiums — are there other public recreational spaces we haven’t seen yet? Amusement parks?
-Does Amber’s unit ever get to work on a case that seems supernatural? Or maybe one of the other characters deals with a seemingly-supernatural occurrence during their time on Teen Level. Or maybe Amber’s Unit has to fake some supernatural occurrence — seeing Nicole’s perspective as Liaison on that could be awesome.
-I’d also love to see more from Nicole’s Liaison work in general! What was the first time she had to cover something up? (Was it on Teen Level?) Does she ever feel conflicted, the way Amber does, or did Lottery select her not to have those qualms?
-More about Buzz’s backstory! It seems like she’s got some trauma that we haven’t seen yet, maybe from her family of origin, maybe not. How might that come out? Or might Amber’s unit ever get assigned to a case that stumbles into old wounds for her?
-I also adore all of the details about the Hive’s Halloween myths. If you want to leave out the requested characters entirely and show me the original team that developed the Hive’s Halloween myths, or something like the guidelines for how the Liaison team can use the Hunter of Souls when covering things up, that could be awesome. Or show me how the Halloween myths play into another Strike for our team, the way they did with the Strike at the beginning of Hurricane!
-Do teenagers ever get besotted with the Hunter of Souls as a character and write angsty poetry about being kissed by his demon breath? Like… tell me that doesn’t happen. I bet it totally happens. I’m not sure if any of our characters would have been into him, but I bet they knew a friend who was back on Teen Level. Maybe someone got roped into trying to go Outside with them to find him! What would that be like?
-While I’d rather not see Amber and Lucas break up after they get together in canon, I’m fine seeing them be interested in others on Teen Level, before they met one another. Amber and Atticus decided not to date during Carnival, but maybe they kissed accidentally while wearing masks the following Halloween! Or show me some of the dating fails that made Lucas think there would never be a person who could understand him well enough to date him. :D
Lock In: Chris Shane
I adore the world of Lock In, and I'd love to get some fic exploring the world.
I've requested Chris Shane for my requested character. I would like to note that I am happy with any amount of Chris. Outsider POV? Fic in the form of narrative investigative journalism article about one of Chris's cases, where Chris shows up briefly? Online message board where people discuss Chris? All good! Or a first-person story from Chris' POV. Also good!
For other characters, I like Leslie, Chris's parents, and Chris's housemates, and I'd be happy to see any of them show up, or even to see a story from one of their perspectives in which Chris is a side character. I'm also open to OCs. I don't ship Chris with anyone in the books currently, but if you do want an old flame OC to show up with a new problem, or in a casefic, that could be interesting!
I like what Scalzi did with keeping Chris' gender undefined, if that's possible. My preference would be keeping things similar to canon, where Chris doesn't have assigned pronouns at all. I get that it's tricky to do that, though! If you do end up needing to give Chris a pronoun, I would prefer they over he or she. I do not want Chris referred to by "it" or neopronouns.
-Vann and Chris get assigned to the Lock In universe's version of The X-Files! I would imagine Vann does NOT want to believe. :D What type(s) of cases might they be looking at?
-Urban legends! I love urban legends, and I especially love seeing them in worlds where they get wrapped up into the worldbuilding. We got to see someone die IRL when their threep got killed in Head On. What other urban legends might come true and require Chris and Leslie's attention? Or what urban legends might Chris unwittingly or deliberately inspire? What ghost stories do Hadens tell?
-How do Hadens celebrate Halloween? Do threeps let them play jokes with spoofing IDs, or is that considered in very bad taste? What about costumes for threeps?
-More tales of Chris destroying threeps! Are there super-heavy-duty threep companies that approach Chris as a test user? How do the tests go wrong? Something like an internal report about all of Chris’s prior threep destruction could also be hilarious.
-Threep epidemic. Maybe a computer virus or network thing leads to a lot of threep behavior unreliability, meaning all threeps have to be shut down. How do Hadens cope with managing their needs? How does Chris' household cope? Are there plans for this sort of situation?
-Or how do Hadens prepare for ordinary emergencies? Like snow storms, blackouts, hurricanes, etc.? I'd imagine they're more vulnerable to power cuts -- is that something Chris and his housemates are prepared for?
-Justin & Justine. I know Scalzi well enough as an author to suspect that he's never going to explain this one. I'd love to see your take on it! What's going on there?
-I also really enjoyed Tayla and Tony, if you want to write something more slice-of-life, about the housemates and what things are like when Chris isn't in the middle of a case that's going to end in destruction.
The Orville: Solana, Kelly, Lt. Kelly, Talla
I love The Orville! I’d love to get a look at Kelly or Talla’s role on the Orville. I’m also interested in learning more about Xeleya, whether that’s with Talla or Solana. While I’m not requesting her specifically for this exchange, I do love Alara, and she’s welcome to come along too.
I love gen in this canon. If you want to write a ship, I’m here for Talla, Solana, and/or Kelly getting paired with an OC of whatever gender. (Solana has a fiancé, but we know nothing about him, so feel free to go nuts there.) I also found myself shipping Lt. Kelly/Talla, if you want to explore that further. I would prefer not to see Kelly with Ed or Cassius — I don’t NOTP it, and references to past Ed/Kelly are fine, but we see so much of Kelly’s personal life revolving around Ed/the opposite of Ed in canon that I’d rather see something different for this.
-Xeleya is very into science and reason. Do they have old legends? Urban legends? Ghosts? I’d imagine Solana doesn’t believe many of them — what might she do if she encountered something she thought was impossible? Or does Talla have a secret (or not-so-secret) addiction to the Xeleyan equivalent of Ancient Aliens?
-Or I’d love to learn more about the kinds of urban legends that get passed around the Planetary Union! Have any of our cast ever inadvertently inspired one of those urban legends? (Fic in the form of in-universe creepy pasta could be amazing here, and if you go with that prompt, I’m actually fine if you want to leave the requested characters out entirely.)
-Alara and Solana go on a trip together (relaxing vacation? something for the wedding?) and get embroiled in something they didn’t expect. Or maybe it’s The Hangover in Xeleya’s equivalent of Vegas? Because I am THERE.
-Emergency response fic for Xeleya! What do hurricanes, winter storms, earthquakes, etc. look like in higher gravity? What about solar storms?
-We don’t know much about what went wrong in Talla’s prior posting, but I am super-curious. I want to see more of Talla’s backstory! What was her past ship like? How does it compare to the Orville? What led her to join the Fleet, given that Xeleyans overall tend to be skeptical of it?
-The crew stumbles across Spooky Halloween Planet, where the resident sentients are invisible or look like ghosts to human eyes. (Or maybe Talla or Kelly is the only one who sees them?) At first they assume the planet is empty, but that doesn’t explain all these perfect structures, or the weird shit that keeps happening….
-Cracky Halloween-in-the-environmental-simulator fic! Does someone run a program they shouldn’t have run and lead the environmental simulator to break its bounds and start simulating hauntings elsewhere on the ship?
-We know from the final two eps of last season that the way time travel works in the Orville universe meant Lt. Kelly had to go back… but what if it didn’t? I’d love to see an AU where they took the Thomas Riker approach, and Lt. Kelly got to stay and just be another person who happened to share a history with Kelly, but is her own person. What would that look like? How would Lt. Kelly develop into a different person from Commander Grayson?
-We know that Ed knows a ton about our era because he’s a giant nerd, but we don’t actually know why Kelly knows so much about late 1990s-early 2000s Earth culture. What if it’s not from her past marriage to Ed? What if she’s actually a time-traveler from our era, who got sucked through a one-way time portal and has to keep it a secret from everyone?
-S3 AU where the shenanigans at the end of S2 mean that Kelly’s now the Captain, with Ed as First Officer!
Pumpkinheads - Hicks and Rowell: Josiah, Deja
I picked this up on a whim when it came out recently and adored it. This is such an amazing fall canon — you couldn’t possibly stuff more autumn into DeKnock’s World Famous Pumpkin Patch & Autumn Jamboree. And I adored both Deja and Josiah (aka Josie) — their friendship, and the way they worked through figuring out where they’ll go next. :D
I’d be happy with either gen or ship — I loved Deja and Josie’s friendship, and I’d adore seeing any of their past adventures at the Patch, whether alone, together, or with others. Or if you do ship it, I’m also here for Deja/Josie!
-An exploration of some place we didn’t get to see in canon! What happens at Grandma’s Chicken Races, or the pumpkin drop or the pumpkin slingshot? Are there more attractions off the map that we didn’t see at all? Does Gourd Golf use actual gourds that have to be replaced each year?
-More about the food, OMG. I love fall and attractions like corn mazes, but I always want more than cider donuts, which is what most corn mazes in my area have. I was totally feeling what the Patch was putting down with their food concessions. I adored all of the food details, like the Freeto Pie and the cider slushees. I wanted to know every single pie this place serves (Five Pies Deja Got To Try, and one that still eludes her?). What other foods does the Patch have? We get some hints from canon that they mix up their offerings from time to time — what foods have they tried that failed miserably? And how on earth do they sell enough succotash to keep a stand open?
-Josiah and Deja come back to the Patch the following season as guests! What’s it like? What are their favorite parts?
-What if they end up going to school somewhere close enough to come back to the Patch the following year? I’d love to see either or both of them running the Haunted Hacienda!
-Or tell me about a curse or haunting at the Patch! Is the Haunted Hacienda really haunted? Does a ghost keep re-lighting the fires in the S’mores Pit after hours? Does the Patch get hit by a bad-luck jinx that circulates among the employees? (Does Josiah totally believe in it and Deja, not so much?) Or maybe the scarecrows start coming to life!
