Fandom: Trick or Treat 2018 Dear Creator Letter
Dear Trick or Treat Creator,
It's my favorite time of year: horror and Halloween and fall weather and Trick or Treat.
Below, I've provided some general likes and Do Not Wants, as well as a few notes about why I like specific fandoms and characters and potential prompts. If there is a discrepancy between the general likes and DNWS and the fandom-specific information, go with the fandom-specific information.
I'm requesting fic and tricks and treats. Feel free to mix and match prompts as tricks and treats or across fandoms.
My absolutely favorite things: werewolves, crossovers, and monsters + magic.
You can find me on DW, LJ, and AO3 as escritoireazul.
Likes
+ stories about women, including f/f, gen, and het
+ werewolves, werewolf packs as families, and werewolf alternate universes in any canon
+ Halloween and horror movies (characters watching them, mocking them, living them, whatever)
+ chosen families and adoption stories where adoption is treated as totally normal and adoption = real family and the adoption is not a BIG DRAMATIC SECRET
+ polyam families, threesomes, foursomes, and moresomes, in all configurations (Vs, triangles, dodecahedrons)
+ monsters of the week, casefic, adventure stories, mysteries
friends and family teaming up to save the world, especially on road trips
+ crossovers and fusions
+ kink (female top or dom only except for the biting and bloodplay): biting, light bondage, impact play, rough body play, bloodplay for supernatural characters, fireplay, marking, sensory overload, orgasm denial/controls, pegging
+ weird west AUs: I particularly like the outlaw feel of it, untamed and wild, big spaces with nowhere to hide, big woods claustrophobic around you, danger at every turn (as long as it avoids the magical Indian/savage Indian/white savior bullshit that can come along with weird west and westerns in general)
+ ghost hunting AUs of all types, including this state-mandated idea
Do Not Want
+ characters dealing with racism, sexism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, fat hate, or ableism within the story
+ character bashing
+ rape, non-con, and dub-con
+ embarrassment/humiliation
+ animal cruelty or death (except for in The Cycle of the Werewolf or Silver Bullet when it comes to farm animals or wild animals - no dogs dying)
+ character death (unless it is, for example, a character dying to become a vampire and therefore still being part of the story)
+ incest
+ big age difference in romantic relationships (except for supernatural characters), particularly an older man/younger woman
+ a/b/o or werewolf stories with Big Tough Alpha Male tropes
+ pregnancy, including mpreg
+ spiders, especially if there is an art component to the fic (There is a sort of exception in my Down in the Library Basement request.)
Requests
There are spoilers below for each of my requests, which are:
500 Yards by Henry Galley: Narrator, Nikki Fitz Fitzgerald
The Nasty at Bellua by Danny Lore: Kareem, Javier
Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King: Marty Coslaw, Elmer Zinneman, Pete Zinneman
Silver Bullet (1985): Jane Coslaw
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King: Trisha McFarland
Down in the Library Basement by Rona Vaselaar | sleepyhollow_101: Cassie
16 Ways to Kill a Vampire at McDonalds: Maggie, Lucy, Claire
500 Yards by Henry Galley: Narrator, Nikki “Fitz” Fitzgerald
Source Material: A story on the NoSleep podcast (story starts around 22:10). It is the story of a bunch of track teammates who are kidnapped by Fitz and taken out into the middle of nowhere to frantically run for their lives because Fitz is looking for a hunt.
Fitz is a werewolf. I love her.
I also love the narrator, who is smart and tough and a fighter. She figures out how to trick Fitz and when that goes wrong, she figures out how to fight back. She is the only one who makes it the 500 yards to the clearing that means she's safe and Fitz won't kill her.
But Fitz has scratched her, and the full moon is rising, and those scratches burn.
Narrator is a werewolf now! WEREWOLVES! I flail a lot over this story, because I did not expect a werewolf story when I started listening to the episode, but that is exactly what I got! And the narrator is an amazing character and a great narrator (and played very well by Addison Peacock). The way she uses her intelligence and her long-distance running skills is a fantastic, smart combination, and her voice throughout, even when she's terrified, is entertaining as hell.
And Fitz. Fitz is monstrous and horrific and terrible, and I love her.
I am not the only one, either! Erin B. Lillis, who played her in the podcast, has a bunch of cute little bitmojis of her (my favorites: Takes a Lot to Get My Ticker Pounding and Fitz After She Accidentally Made a Pup), and Bajin Setan made some amazing Fitz fanart. So basically, Fitz is the flannel wearing monsterous queer werewolf woman of my heart and I love her.
I could have sworn narrator had a name, but when I got ready for nominations, I couldn't find one. Have fun with naming her.
Prompts:
I ship Fitz and narrator, but I also ship narrator with pretty much any woman ever and Fitz with all the other women werewolves running around in source material.
So. Narrator is a werewolf and about to deal with her first full moon. What happens? What does she hunt? Does she try to take out Fitz to get vengeance for her teammates, either right away or later, once she's had some practice being a werewolf?
Does being a werewolf change the core of who narrator is? Was Fitz always monstrous or did becoming a werewolf make her that way? What happens to narrator as she goes through the changes?
Fitz does this whole chase thing A LOT, and narrator is the first person to ever make it to the clearing, much less also become a werewolf. How does Fitz deal with this? Does she feel protective over narrator? Does she feel like her territory has been invaded? Does she try to teach narrator about the thrill of the hunt, and how does narrator deal with that?
There's some really interesting mythology going on here, especially that Fitz's heart doesn't beat unless she's doing something hugely physical, like chasing a bunch of runners through the woods and devouring them.
Fitz is a truck driver, or at least that's how I read her. There are already stories of serial killer truck drivers never caught because they're running the interstates and highways and byways of the USA. Is this Fitz? In addition to her regular wood hunts, does she hunt and kill and eat in other places? Are there urban legends, campfire stories about her? Does narrator end up with stories about her, too?
Does narrator dedicate herself to trying to stop Fitz from hunting people again? Does she show up the next time Fitz brings people to that bit of woods to hunt? Does she find other monsters who don't want to be monsters?
What's werewolf culture like in this world? Is Fitz the only one around? Are they few and hunt far apart? Do they ever come together? Does narrator get herself into trouble stumbling into another werewolf?
Especially with Fitz, this seems ripe for a weird west setup. There's a good possibility that she's been around for a long time, hunting as a truck driver now, but as other things before that. A sheriff? A cowboy? An outlaw?
The Nasty at Bellua by Danny Lore: Kareem, Javier
Source Material: WEREWOLVES! IN! SPACE! It's a short story available for free online that was also turned into an episode of the Nightlight Podcast (which is a great podcast and I highly recommend it).
Basically, a team is exploring a planet when they get attacked by a creature they call the Nasty, once it's dead it's brought onto the ship for study, and changes start happening to Kareem and Javier. It is wonderful.
Prompts:
WEREWOLVES. IN. SPACE.
I'm happy with stories about either Kareem or Javier because they are both dealing with the thing I love best about the story (becoming a werewolf in space). There's a bit of a time skip toward the end of the story, which opens things up to the many, many times one or both of them hunted the other crew members through an enclosed space or fought each other for space or cycled through human and back to space werewolf. Where are people hiding? Do some of them fight back? There's a robust science section on the ship, are there people looking for a cure?
At the end, the ship is going to be boarded by a rescue squad; Kareem knows he won't be able to explain to them why they can't take him off the ship, or Javier if he's even alive, and in the end, knows that the way to make sure no one leaves the ship alive is just to wait for the next change. Unprepared rescue crew + space werewolves + trapped in a ship. Hiding and running and fighting and all sorts of nastiness.
What if Kareem and/or Javier end up on another planet? Back on Earth? On another ship, kept in seclusion until something goes terribly wrong? Is there a way to cure it or control it eventually? Are there others out there who will come looking for them? Other people who were bitten and left the planet?
WEREWOLVES. IN. SPACE. There's so much potential there, and I would read all the stories.
Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King: Marty Coslaw, Elmer Zinneman, Pete Zinneman
Source Material: Novella about, well, a werewolf. Twelve chapters follow twelve months, twelve full moons, and twelve sets of victims. I love werewolves, and I love werewolf stories framed by each month's full moon, and therefore I love this novella, though a lot of that is in a cheesy horror love kind of way. I don't even mind the werewolf cliches that come along for the ride (and actually quite enjoy a lot of them).
I love the small town creepiness, a lot of which has nothing to do with the werewolf and everything to do with the way that small towns keep their own secrets and people know too much and do too little all at the same time. Especially a small town with the woods rising up around it, dangerous and mysterious.
Prompts:
Marty takes on a werewolf and survives. Now he knows that at least one such thing exists. What else does he find out about as he gets older. Does he ever make a mistake, pick the wrong flower, drink water from the wrong footprint (I know, I know), and end up a werewolf himself? Does he try to get others to believe in what he's seen?
Different characters briefly reference omens of evil and a bad season in Tarker's Mills, starting with Arnie in January, which opens the book. What sort of weirdness happened before this killing spree? Did Marty see any of it or hear rumors or anything? What happens after? Is the werewolf the only evil and bad thing around, or do other things turn up after, drawn now to the darkness and bloodshed at Tarker's Mills?
Pete Zinnemann is real quick to believe in the werewolf and very blunt about it when his brother Elmer's pigs are slaughtered. Is it just because of months of deaths around the full moon, or has he seen something else? Is Pete a stoic sort of hunter? Does he know things but keep them to himself?
And for that matter, why does it take until September for the werewolf to kill a bunch of animals? This is a small town and there are farms around it. Surely that would be easier than some of the human kills, and especially when the werewolf-as-a-human knows he's attracting attention, less likely to get him caught.
I'd also love to see more stories set in this world in general, with the creepy small town and the foreboding woods and something monstrous hunting through it, whether it is Tarker's Mills or somewhere else, whether any of these characters are involved or not.
Silver Bullet (1985): Jane Coslaw
Source Material: Movie adaptation of The Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King. Many of the things I love about the book apply here, but one additional thing is the complicated relationship Jane has with Marty. In the book, the sister (Kate), isn't developed much at all and doesn't get involved in the werewolf stuff, but Jane in the movie not only tells the story framing the movie but is also right there with Marty.
Prompts:
What's life like for Jane after this, knowing now that at least one werewolf was real and probably others are, too? Does she become some sort of supernatural hunter? Does she bury her head in the sand? Does something else happen to drag her back into it?
What does Jane and Marty's relationship look like after this? She's struggled with loving him and with her role as his older sister needing to protect him, but after the werewolf fight, she can tell him she loves him and they have grown closer. Does that last? Does going back to normalcy change things yet again? Does one of them get obsessed with proving other monsters exist while the other tries to talk them down?
As Jane grows up and moves away from Tarker's Mills, what else does she run into? What characters from supernatural stories does she bump into?
Marty + Jane road trip checking out monster stories across the country, complete with hitchhiking ghosts and creepy deserts and full moons rising each month.
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King: Trisha McFarland
Source Material: Survival horror novel (with a pop-up adaptation). Trisha gets lost in the woods, hallucinates people, and perhaps deals with supernatural events/perhaps hallucinates everything, up to interpretation. Before she's found, Trisha faces down a bear, because she's amazing.
I love survival horror and lost in the wilderness stories and supernatural events that might or might not be real and kids fending for themselves and animals or monsters hunting people through the woods, so this book has long been one of my favorites. I tend to come down on the supernatural? YES side of interpretations in all things, but I love a supernatural? NO interpretation here, too.
Prompts:
Trisha is young, only nine, when she survives. How does this affect her as she gets older? Does she avoid the woods, always? Does she go hiking and camping regularly? Does she look for the God of the Lost? Teen Trisha on a group camping trip having to keep her friends/classmates/scout group/baseball team alive from mundane or supernatural things?
If the God of the Lost is real, Trisha escaped it but did not kill it. What happens when someone escapes the God of the Lost? Does it let them go, because they are no longer lost? Does it come after them? Does Trisha finally beat it and if so, how, or how does she lose?
If you are on the supernatural? YES interpretation, does this affect her in different ways than if it was mundane only? Does she start looking for other creatures? Does she look for other people who have survived?
This is another one that feels like a good place to go weird west AU. Trisha's survival in the outdoors could be wandering away from a wagon train or some sort of small settlement or a great ranch that's still wild at the edges.
Trees. A lost kid. Something scary following her. WEREWOLF, RIGHT? I love this book for what it is, but every time I read it, I spend a great deal of time hoping for a werewolf, even though I know better. So. Werewolf. Somehow, somewhere. Werewolf.
Down in the Library Basement by Rona Vaselaar | sleepyhollow_101: Cassie
Source Material: A story posted to NoSleep in three parts (one, two, three) and then adapted to a podcast episode of NoSleep (story starts around 4:00) (and it is GREAT).
A young woman, Cassie, has to step in to run a small-town library for her mother when her mother breaks her leg. There's something special about this library, something in the basement, and Cassie has quite an adventure with it, her mother, and eventually a cadre of confident, fierce, wonderful librarians.
I love Cassie and her story so much; she goes from reluctantly helping her mother to being terrified of the thing in the basement, to being protective and smart and loyal. Her mother is also great, and the rest of the librarians who show up in the last part absolutely delightful.
The thing in the basement is giant and spider-like, which means my DNW sort of doesn't apply here (and also, I have no idea why I love this story so much, because normally I would have noped out of this the second I figured it out). It is also, somehow, a delight.
I received a couple of amazing gifts in this fandom last year, one for Trick or Treat (...and the Avian of Darkness by burglebezzlement, a crossover with The Librarians (TV 2014)) and one for Yuletide (Finally Winning Out by donutsweeper). I love them, they are wonderful and satisfying and absolutely made my day when I read them. I'm still eager for more stories in this world, because it is strange and twisty and a little creepy and entertaining every time I reread it (or listen to the podcast episode again).
Prompts:
Cassie's basically a librarian for life by the end of the story and a bunch of librarians at other libraries have library protectors of their own, plus at least some of them came to help fight a monster. It can't be the only monster out there. What does Cassie get up to with the other librarians and their libraries? Do Cassie, her mother, and the other librarians form a team to hunt down the creatures that aren't safe, that are truly monsters, and protect the world? Do they use their library protectors to help?
It's easy for people to look at the library protectors as monsters. What happens when people try to take one out? How does Cassie protect it? Does she teach people that it is safe or does she fight back or does she hide them or what?
These are basically giant spiders and therefore terrifying, and worse, some of them are maneaters. Kids disappear. Kids are eaten. What kind of path of horror do they spread? Once the big male in Cassie's town has been killed, does that open them up to attacks by others? Is there another spate of kids gone missing?
Cassie seems absolutely delighted by some of the women who come to hunt the big maneating monster. Does she hook up with them? If she gets serious with someone who isn't already a librarian in the know, at what point does she tell them about the guardian of her library? Does she ever? If she doesn't, do they accidentally find out? Dating while hiding monsters and possibly monster hunting can be tough, and it could go very, bloodily wrong.
I ship Cassie with pretty much any woman ever except for her mother.
16 Ways to Kill a Vampire in McDonalds: Lucy, Claire, Maggie
Source material: An adorable online game about what it says on the tin. It is fun and delightful, makes excellent use of vampire lore, and has some fantastic queer subtext (or text, depending on how you play). I would enjoy both light-hearted fun takes on vampire hunting or something dark and frightening and terrible.
I came out of this game wanting a billion stories about queer vampire hunting girls, and ship Lucy, Maggie, and Claire in any combination.
I received two great stories for this fandom last year, too, one for Trick or Treat (A Hairy Situation by inkyrius [I bet you can tell one of the reasons I adore it just from that title alone]) and one for Yuletide (Mouse Kills Cat by hyenateeth [great story about hunting vampires]), but as above, I'm still eager for more stories in this tiny little fandom.
Prompts:
Lucy and Maggie are already vampire hunters. (Lucy is the bait, Maggie loves her machete. I love this description of Maggie: Maggie looks like Tinkerbell. Five feet tall with short blonde hair and a wide smile. The effect is only slightly ruined by the machete and the spray of blood decorating her face and tank top. It also sets a nice tone for the game itself.) Even so, finding a vampire in McDonalds is weird for them. What other strange places have they found vampires?
Once you find all the endings, you can briefly play as Claire, the adorable cashier, and in some of those endings, she goes off with Lucy to become a vampire hunter. What does her first hunt look like? What weapons does she prefer? What weirdness does she get to see?
Sometimes, in the game, the hunt goes badly, and Lucy or Claire die. Lucy is also very straightforward about the fact that even as bait, she won’t get to live a long life doing what she does. In the storylines where later hunts happen for any of the girls, what goes wrong in their last hunt?
The ghosts of the people the vampire kills linger around him, calling out for help, which is handled in a pretty damn creepy way for a lighthearted quick game. I love this bit of worldbuilding, and want to see more of it as any of the girls deal with that, for the first time, for a particularly heartbreaking time, whatever.
Do the vampires ever figure out what's going on? Do they turn around and hunt the hunters? This could be such a creepy story, dark alleys and people being used as bait and all the terrible ways people can be controlled and turned.
Weird west AU where they're all riding horses and shooting guns and there's dust everywhere and everyone thirsts for something, or maybe backstory on how long this sort of group hunting has occurred and previous teams throughout time.
This entry was original posted at https://escritoireazul.dreamwidth.org/457821.html with
comments. Reply here or there.
It's my favorite time of year: horror and Halloween and fall weather and Trick or Treat.
Below, I've provided some general likes and Do Not Wants, as well as a few notes about why I like specific fandoms and characters and potential prompts. If there is a discrepancy between the general likes and DNWS and the fandom-specific information, go with the fandom-specific information.
I'm requesting fic and tricks and treats. Feel free to mix and match prompts as tricks and treats or across fandoms.
My absolutely favorite things: werewolves, crossovers, and monsters + magic.
You can find me on DW, LJ, and AO3 as escritoireazul.
Likes
+ stories about women, including f/f, gen, and het
+ werewolves, werewolf packs as families, and werewolf alternate universes in any canon
+ Halloween and horror movies (characters watching them, mocking them, living them, whatever)
+ chosen families and adoption stories where adoption is treated as totally normal and adoption = real family and the adoption is not a BIG DRAMATIC SECRET
+ polyam families, threesomes, foursomes, and moresomes, in all configurations (Vs, triangles, dodecahedrons)
+ monsters of the week, casefic, adventure stories, mysteries
friends and family teaming up to save the world, especially on road trips
+ crossovers and fusions
+ kink (female top or dom only except for the biting and bloodplay): biting, light bondage, impact play, rough body play, bloodplay for supernatural characters, fireplay, marking, sensory overload, orgasm denial/controls, pegging
+ weird west AUs: I particularly like the outlaw feel of it, untamed and wild, big spaces with nowhere to hide, big woods claustrophobic around you, danger at every turn (as long as it avoids the magical Indian/savage Indian/white savior bullshit that can come along with weird west and westerns in general)
+ ghost hunting AUs of all types, including this state-mandated idea
Do Not Want
+ characters dealing with racism, sexism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, fat hate, or ableism within the story
+ character bashing
+ rape, non-con, and dub-con
+ embarrassment/humiliation
+ animal cruelty or death (except for in The Cycle of the Werewolf or Silver Bullet when it comes to farm animals or wild animals - no dogs dying)
+ character death (unless it is, for example, a character dying to become a vampire and therefore still being part of the story)
+ incest
+ big age difference in romantic relationships (except for supernatural characters), particularly an older man/younger woman
+ a/b/o or werewolf stories with Big Tough Alpha Male tropes
+ pregnancy, including mpreg
+ spiders, especially if there is an art component to the fic (There is a sort of exception in my Down in the Library Basement request.)
Requests
There are spoilers below for each of my requests, which are:
500 Yards by Henry Galley: Narrator, Nikki Fitz Fitzgerald
The Nasty at Bellua by Danny Lore: Kareem, Javier
Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King: Marty Coslaw, Elmer Zinneman, Pete Zinneman
Silver Bullet (1985): Jane Coslaw
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King: Trisha McFarland
Down in the Library Basement by Rona Vaselaar | sleepyhollow_101: Cassie
16 Ways to Kill a Vampire at McDonalds: Maggie, Lucy, Claire
500 Yards by Henry Galley: Narrator, Nikki “Fitz” Fitzgerald
Source Material: A story on the NoSleep podcast (story starts around 22:10). It is the story of a bunch of track teammates who are kidnapped by Fitz and taken out into the middle of nowhere to frantically run for their lives because Fitz is looking for a hunt.
Fitz is a werewolf. I love her.
I also love the narrator, who is smart and tough and a fighter. She figures out how to trick Fitz and when that goes wrong, she figures out how to fight back. She is the only one who makes it the 500 yards to the clearing that means she's safe and Fitz won't kill her.
But Fitz has scratched her, and the full moon is rising, and those scratches burn.
Narrator is a werewolf now! WEREWOLVES! I flail a lot over this story, because I did not expect a werewolf story when I started listening to the episode, but that is exactly what I got! And the narrator is an amazing character and a great narrator (and played very well by Addison Peacock). The way she uses her intelligence and her long-distance running skills is a fantastic, smart combination, and her voice throughout, even when she's terrified, is entertaining as hell.
And Fitz. Fitz is monstrous and horrific and terrible, and I love her.
I am not the only one, either! Erin B. Lillis, who played her in the podcast, has a bunch of cute little bitmojis of her (my favorites: Takes a Lot to Get My Ticker Pounding and Fitz After She Accidentally Made a Pup), and Bajin Setan made some amazing Fitz fanart. So basically, Fitz is the flannel wearing monsterous queer werewolf woman of my heart and I love her.
I could have sworn narrator had a name, but when I got ready for nominations, I couldn't find one. Have fun with naming her.
Prompts:
I ship Fitz and narrator, but I also ship narrator with pretty much any woman ever and Fitz with all the other women werewolves running around in source material.
So. Narrator is a werewolf and about to deal with her first full moon. What happens? What does she hunt? Does she try to take out Fitz to get vengeance for her teammates, either right away or later, once she's had some practice being a werewolf?
Does being a werewolf change the core of who narrator is? Was Fitz always monstrous or did becoming a werewolf make her that way? What happens to narrator as she goes through the changes?
Fitz does this whole chase thing A LOT, and narrator is the first person to ever make it to the clearing, much less also become a werewolf. How does Fitz deal with this? Does she feel protective over narrator? Does she feel like her territory has been invaded? Does she try to teach narrator about the thrill of the hunt, and how does narrator deal with that?
There's some really interesting mythology going on here, especially that Fitz's heart doesn't beat unless she's doing something hugely physical, like chasing a bunch of runners through the woods and devouring them.
Fitz is a truck driver, or at least that's how I read her. There are already stories of serial killer truck drivers never caught because they're running the interstates and highways and byways of the USA. Is this Fitz? In addition to her regular wood hunts, does she hunt and kill and eat in other places? Are there urban legends, campfire stories about her? Does narrator end up with stories about her, too?
Does narrator dedicate herself to trying to stop Fitz from hunting people again? Does she show up the next time Fitz brings people to that bit of woods to hunt? Does she find other monsters who don't want to be monsters?
What's werewolf culture like in this world? Is Fitz the only one around? Are they few and hunt far apart? Do they ever come together? Does narrator get herself into trouble stumbling into another werewolf?
Especially with Fitz, this seems ripe for a weird west setup. There's a good possibility that she's been around for a long time, hunting as a truck driver now, but as other things before that. A sheriff? A cowboy? An outlaw?
The Nasty at Bellua by Danny Lore: Kareem, Javier
Source Material: WEREWOLVES! IN! SPACE! It's a short story available for free online that was also turned into an episode of the Nightlight Podcast (which is a great podcast and I highly recommend it).
Basically, a team is exploring a planet when they get attacked by a creature they call the Nasty, once it's dead it's brought onto the ship for study, and changes start happening to Kareem and Javier. It is wonderful.
Prompts:
WEREWOLVES. IN. SPACE.
I'm happy with stories about either Kareem or Javier because they are both dealing with the thing I love best about the story (becoming a werewolf in space). There's a bit of a time skip toward the end of the story, which opens things up to the many, many times one or both of them hunted the other crew members through an enclosed space or fought each other for space or cycled through human and back to space werewolf. Where are people hiding? Do some of them fight back? There's a robust science section on the ship, are there people looking for a cure?
At the end, the ship is going to be boarded by a rescue squad; Kareem knows he won't be able to explain to them why they can't take him off the ship, or Javier if he's even alive, and in the end, knows that the way to make sure no one leaves the ship alive is just to wait for the next change. Unprepared rescue crew + space werewolves + trapped in a ship. Hiding and running and fighting and all sorts of nastiness.
What if Kareem and/or Javier end up on another planet? Back on Earth? On another ship, kept in seclusion until something goes terribly wrong? Is there a way to cure it or control it eventually? Are there others out there who will come looking for them? Other people who were bitten and left the planet?
WEREWOLVES. IN. SPACE. There's so much potential there, and I would read all the stories.
Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King: Marty Coslaw, Elmer Zinneman, Pete Zinneman
Source Material: Novella about, well, a werewolf. Twelve chapters follow twelve months, twelve full moons, and twelve sets of victims. I love werewolves, and I love werewolf stories framed by each month's full moon, and therefore I love this novella, though a lot of that is in a cheesy horror love kind of way. I don't even mind the werewolf cliches that come along for the ride (and actually quite enjoy a lot of them).
I love the small town creepiness, a lot of which has nothing to do with the werewolf and everything to do with the way that small towns keep their own secrets and people know too much and do too little all at the same time. Especially a small town with the woods rising up around it, dangerous and mysterious.
Prompts:
Marty takes on a werewolf and survives. Now he knows that at least one such thing exists. What else does he find out about as he gets older. Does he ever make a mistake, pick the wrong flower, drink water from the wrong footprint (I know, I know), and end up a werewolf himself? Does he try to get others to believe in what he's seen?
Different characters briefly reference omens of evil and a bad season in Tarker's Mills, starting with Arnie in January, which opens the book. What sort of weirdness happened before this killing spree? Did Marty see any of it or hear rumors or anything? What happens after? Is the werewolf the only evil and bad thing around, or do other things turn up after, drawn now to the darkness and bloodshed at Tarker's Mills?
Pete Zinnemann is real quick to believe in the werewolf and very blunt about it when his brother Elmer's pigs are slaughtered. Is it just because of months of deaths around the full moon, or has he seen something else? Is Pete a stoic sort of hunter? Does he know things but keep them to himself?
And for that matter, why does it take until September for the werewolf to kill a bunch of animals? This is a small town and there are farms around it. Surely that would be easier than some of the human kills, and especially when the werewolf-as-a-human knows he's attracting attention, less likely to get him caught.
I'd also love to see more stories set in this world in general, with the creepy small town and the foreboding woods and something monstrous hunting through it, whether it is Tarker's Mills or somewhere else, whether any of these characters are involved or not.
Silver Bullet (1985): Jane Coslaw
Source Material: Movie adaptation of The Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King. Many of the things I love about the book apply here, but one additional thing is the complicated relationship Jane has with Marty. In the book, the sister (Kate), isn't developed much at all and doesn't get involved in the werewolf stuff, but Jane in the movie not only tells the story framing the movie but is also right there with Marty.
Prompts:
What's life like for Jane after this, knowing now that at least one werewolf was real and probably others are, too? Does she become some sort of supernatural hunter? Does she bury her head in the sand? Does something else happen to drag her back into it?
What does Jane and Marty's relationship look like after this? She's struggled with loving him and with her role as his older sister needing to protect him, but after the werewolf fight, she can tell him she loves him and they have grown closer. Does that last? Does going back to normalcy change things yet again? Does one of them get obsessed with proving other monsters exist while the other tries to talk them down?
As Jane grows up and moves away from Tarker's Mills, what else does she run into? What characters from supernatural stories does she bump into?
Marty + Jane road trip checking out monster stories across the country, complete with hitchhiking ghosts and creepy deserts and full moons rising each month.
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King: Trisha McFarland
Source Material: Survival horror novel (with a pop-up adaptation). Trisha gets lost in the woods, hallucinates people, and perhaps deals with supernatural events/perhaps hallucinates everything, up to interpretation. Before she's found, Trisha faces down a bear, because she's amazing.
I love survival horror and lost in the wilderness stories and supernatural events that might or might not be real and kids fending for themselves and animals or monsters hunting people through the woods, so this book has long been one of my favorites. I tend to come down on the supernatural? YES side of interpretations in all things, but I love a supernatural? NO interpretation here, too.
Prompts:
Trisha is young, only nine, when she survives. How does this affect her as she gets older? Does she avoid the woods, always? Does she go hiking and camping regularly? Does she look for the God of the Lost? Teen Trisha on a group camping trip having to keep her friends/classmates/scout group/baseball team alive from mundane or supernatural things?
If the God of the Lost is real, Trisha escaped it but did not kill it. What happens when someone escapes the God of the Lost? Does it let them go, because they are no longer lost? Does it come after them? Does Trisha finally beat it and if so, how, or how does she lose?
If you are on the supernatural? YES interpretation, does this affect her in different ways than if it was mundane only? Does she start looking for other creatures? Does she look for other people who have survived?
This is another one that feels like a good place to go weird west AU. Trisha's survival in the outdoors could be wandering away from a wagon train or some sort of small settlement or a great ranch that's still wild at the edges.
Trees. A lost kid. Something scary following her. WEREWOLF, RIGHT? I love this book for what it is, but every time I read it, I spend a great deal of time hoping for a werewolf, even though I know better. So. Werewolf. Somehow, somewhere. Werewolf.
Down in the Library Basement by Rona Vaselaar | sleepyhollow_101: Cassie
Source Material: A story posted to NoSleep in three parts (one, two, three) and then adapted to a podcast episode of NoSleep (story starts around 4:00) (and it is GREAT).
A young woman, Cassie, has to step in to run a small-town library for her mother when her mother breaks her leg. There's something special about this library, something in the basement, and Cassie has quite an adventure with it, her mother, and eventually a cadre of confident, fierce, wonderful librarians.
I love Cassie and her story so much; she goes from reluctantly helping her mother to being terrified of the thing in the basement, to being protective and smart and loyal. Her mother is also great, and the rest of the librarians who show up in the last part absolutely delightful.
The thing in the basement is giant and spider-like, which means my DNW sort of doesn't apply here (and also, I have no idea why I love this story so much, because normally I would have noped out of this the second I figured it out). It is also, somehow, a delight.
I received a couple of amazing gifts in this fandom last year, one for Trick or Treat (...and the Avian of Darkness by burglebezzlement, a crossover with The Librarians (TV 2014)) and one for Yuletide (Finally Winning Out by donutsweeper). I love them, they are wonderful and satisfying and absolutely made my day when I read them. I'm still eager for more stories in this world, because it is strange and twisty and a little creepy and entertaining every time I reread it (or listen to the podcast episode again).
Prompts:
Cassie's basically a librarian for life by the end of the story and a bunch of librarians at other libraries have library protectors of their own, plus at least some of them came to help fight a monster. It can't be the only monster out there. What does Cassie get up to with the other librarians and their libraries? Do Cassie, her mother, and the other librarians form a team to hunt down the creatures that aren't safe, that are truly monsters, and protect the world? Do they use their library protectors to help?
It's easy for people to look at the library protectors as monsters. What happens when people try to take one out? How does Cassie protect it? Does she teach people that it is safe or does she fight back or does she hide them or what?
These are basically giant spiders and therefore terrifying, and worse, some of them are maneaters. Kids disappear. Kids are eaten. What kind of path of horror do they spread? Once the big male in Cassie's town has been killed, does that open them up to attacks by others? Is there another spate of kids gone missing?
Cassie seems absolutely delighted by some of the women who come to hunt the big maneating monster. Does she hook up with them? If she gets serious with someone who isn't already a librarian in the know, at what point does she tell them about the guardian of her library? Does she ever? If she doesn't, do they accidentally find out? Dating while hiding monsters and possibly monster hunting can be tough, and it could go very, bloodily wrong.
I ship Cassie with pretty much any woman ever except for her mother.
16 Ways to Kill a Vampire in McDonalds: Lucy, Claire, Maggie
Source material: An adorable online game about what it says on the tin. It is fun and delightful, makes excellent use of vampire lore, and has some fantastic queer subtext (or text, depending on how you play). I would enjoy both light-hearted fun takes on vampire hunting or something dark and frightening and terrible.
I came out of this game wanting a billion stories about queer vampire hunting girls, and ship Lucy, Maggie, and Claire in any combination.
I received two great stories for this fandom last year, too, one for Trick or Treat (A Hairy Situation by inkyrius [I bet you can tell one of the reasons I adore it just from that title alone]) and one for Yuletide (Mouse Kills Cat by hyenateeth [great story about hunting vampires]), but as above, I'm still eager for more stories in this tiny little fandom.
Prompts:
Lucy and Maggie are already vampire hunters. (Lucy is the bait, Maggie loves her machete. I love this description of Maggie: Maggie looks like Tinkerbell. Five feet tall with short blonde hair and a wide smile. The effect is only slightly ruined by the machete and the spray of blood decorating her face and tank top. It also sets a nice tone for the game itself.) Even so, finding a vampire in McDonalds is weird for them. What other strange places have they found vampires?
Once you find all the endings, you can briefly play as Claire, the adorable cashier, and in some of those endings, she goes off with Lucy to become a vampire hunter. What does her first hunt look like? What weapons does she prefer? What weirdness does she get to see?
Sometimes, in the game, the hunt goes badly, and Lucy or Claire die. Lucy is also very straightforward about the fact that even as bait, she won’t get to live a long life doing what she does. In the storylines where later hunts happen for any of the girls, what goes wrong in their last hunt?
The ghosts of the people the vampire kills linger around him, calling out for help, which is handled in a pretty damn creepy way for a lighthearted quick game. I love this bit of worldbuilding, and want to see more of it as any of the girls deal with that, for the first time, for a particularly heartbreaking time, whatever.
Do the vampires ever figure out what's going on? Do they turn around and hunt the hunters? This could be such a creepy story, dark alleys and people being used as bait and all the terrible ways people can be controlled and turned.
Weird west AU where they're all riding horses and shooting guns and there's dust everywhere and everyone thirsts for something, or maybe backstory on how long this sort of group hunting has occurred and previous teams throughout time.
This entry was original posted at https://escritoireazul.dreamwidth.org/457821.html with
comments. Reply here or there.