Trick or Treat 2016 letter!
Hello and a pre-emptive thank you for writing for me! I love this exchange, I love fall, I love Halloween, I’m so excited, eee. Um, anyway, let’s get on with the letter! I’ve cobbled it together out of bits of previous letters, so bear with me.
General likes:
-slice of life
-character studies
-pining (requited, unrequited, I love it all)
-angst
-fluff
-porn (plot usually preferred, but PWP is not a problem either)
General dislikes:
-AUs/fusions
-graphic violence/gore (that doesn’t mean no violence at all, just don’t dwell on the details)
-deathfic (unless it's canon death)
-kidfic (unless there are canon kids - Playing House fic can certainly contain adorable baby-related shenanigans)
Normally I don't like horror or supernatural occurrences in settings that don't already have them, but this exchange is absolutely an exception. I still prefer if the main characters are alive and well by the end, and I still would prefer avoiding graphic depictions of violence, but other than that, ghosts and monsters and creepiness and general overall weirdness are very welcome.
I LOVE Halloween itself and will gladly read anything related to the holiday for any of these fandoms.
I like fairly vanilla sex scenes mostly -- light bondage is great, anything involving serious pain/injury or body fluids not typically associated with sex, not so much. (Though I love cumplay, for some reason.) I'm fine with super graphic PWPs, if that's where your inclinations take you, but feel free to fade to black or not write any sex at all if you prefer! In-character canon-compliant gen is also great. I'll list my ships in the specific fandoms, but that doesn't mean you should feel obligated to write shipfic.
I feel like browsing what I've written and bookmarked on ao3 is a pretty good indication of the kind of thing I like. But honestly, I'm REALLY not very picky. Optional details are ENTIRELY OPTIONAL - don't feel the need to use any of them if you don't want to. I'd rather have you enjoy yourself than stress over trying to write the perfect fill. These are all canons I love and just want more (or in a couple cases, any) fic for in general.
As for art: I don’t ask for art because I’m not an artist and really don’t know anything about art, so I don’t really know what to request or prompt art-wise. That said, if you’re interested in art as a treat, I would absolutely adore it.
On to the prompts! Yes, a couple of these are repeated from previous exchanges. I still want them, so I'm still requesting them.
The Final Girls
Duncan, Vicki, Gertie
I actually like everyone but these three are my faves, so they’re the ones I’m requesting. (I also feel like Max’s story arc was wrapped up pretty perfectly in the actual film.) I would love to see sequelfic - the events of the second half of the double-header, or what happens if/when they finally get home. Or exploration as to how exactly they ended up in the movie in the first place! I would vastly prefer nobody get actually for real killed off, but fakeout/impermanent deaths are fine (just, you know, not too graphic, please. I really appreciated this movie’s PG-13 rating.) I really love Duncan and Gertie’s relationship as kind of antagonistic stepsiblings who still love each other and would love to see that explored (especially since Gertie watched Duncan “die” already), and Vicki and Gertie have this awesome frenemy thing going on that I also love. I could totally ship them if you want to go that route.
Ghostbusters (2016)
Kevin, Garrett
Agh I know I KNOW this is such a great movie with Strong Female Heroes and here I am wanting to ship the two hot guys who never even meet onscreen I KNOW it’s terrible, okay, just terrible. But the heart wants what it wants and what mine wants is for Chris Hemsworth and Zach Woods to make out. How do they even meet? I don’t know! Maybe via a “my life was ruined by ghosts” support group Kevin doesn’t even think he needs to attend, but the Ghostbusters think might be good for him? I love how Kevin is so dumb but so sweet and earnest, and basically becomes the team’s lovable clumsy puppy by the end. He’s an idiot but he’s THEIR idiot and they just want him to be okay, dammit!
I’m pretty curious about what Garrett does post-Gertrude Aldridge incident. Does he keep his job, or get another one somewhere else - that turns out to be just as haunted, and he has to call the Ghostbusters for help? Honestly I have a lot of sympathy for him, since I don’t even think I would have reacted as well as he did when confronted with an actual bona fide malevolent spirit.
Incidentally, I’m kind of sad that Garrett and Patty never meet in the movie. I like the idea of them getting excited about history together.
A last-minute addendum: I mentioned on Imzy that I was going to request Ghostbusters, and someone asked if I was going to be requesting ghost sex. I hadn’t planned on it, but... the more I think about it, the more appealing either character getting dubconned by a ghost (of either gender) is. Or maybe there are shenanigans involving possession? (Like, Garrett is into Kevin, assumes Kevin’s way out of his league, but then a possessed Kevin comes onto him and he isn’t sure how to react...) Feel free to get weird with it, just try not to break anyone permanently.
Gravity Falls
Robbie
Three of the things I love in this world: hoodies, TJ Miller, and characters who act like assholes to cover up their immense insecurities. I just binged Gravity Falls recently and, needless to say, I REALLY LOVED ROBBIE. And there’s not a lot of fic about him. I mean, I totally understand why he’s not a very popular character, but I would love to see that remedied.
I have a lot of feelings about Robbie being part of the prophesied hero group from the end of Weirdmageddon - the heroes who ended up not actually really accomplishing anything, ultimately. Everyone else involved had had some opportunity to fight against occult forces at some point in earlier episodes, but not Robbie; he’d just kind of had weird things happen to him. The fact that he suddenly had the chance to do something heroic, and then it never actually happened, just made me really sad for him? So I’d love a fic where he does get a chance to be a hero. He can totally be a whiny jerk about it, I mean, he’s still Robbie = ) Gravity Falls is still a place where weird crap happens, and there are lots of supernatural forces and cryptids and mythological creatures the show never introduced - selkies, sirens, Bigfoot, vampires (well, apparently Mabel ran into some at some point offscreen), whatever, the show basically gives you carte blanche to write whatever weird creepy stuff you want, run wild! I also recently picked up Journal 3 and it's full of weird creatures that never made it into the show. If you have access to it, there might be some inspiration there.
I also thought the end of the Love God episode was pretty skeevy, tbh, and the fact that Robbie and Tambry didn’t seem particularly concerned for each other in the finale made me suspect they’d broken up. I will also admit flat out that I spent the whole show sort of half-hoping that Robbie and Wendy would get back together, but if you’d rather write them as just friends I’m totally cool with that too. I also have a weird desire for futurefic Robbie/Dipper? I guess I'm just a sucker for former-rivals-as-friends (or boyfriends), though if you go this route I'd rather Dipper be at least 18. A three-year age difference seems a lot less weird when the characters are 18 and 21 then when they're 13 and 16 = )
Playing House
any (nominated: Emma, Maggie, Zach, Bruce, Charlotte)
I really love the characters in this show - I think Emma and Maggie's friendship is realistic and wonderful, and I love how they both have selfish and mean moments but are at heart good people who've got each others' backs. I'd take any fic at all for this show and be thrilled; there's definitely a lot of opportunity for adorable fluff involving Charlotte. I really love the episode where Bruce and Zach babysit and would love more of that; I also love Maggie and Zach's relationship and how she feels protective of him. Something about their childhoods might be fun, or them in the aftermath of their parents' death, if you want to go a darker, sadder route. Or something on the crackier side, involving Bosephus or the raccoons who lived in the playhouse in the first episode (or both at once?).
I don't particularly ship anything in this series; I could probably be convinced of Emma/Maggie pretty easily but I love their friendship the way it is, and I think Bruce and Maggie's arc in season 2 has been pretty cute. I also have a weird desire for some Emma/Zach that goes somewhere awkward and embarrassing - a hookup they both immediately realize was a terrible idea and try to hide from Maggie? I'm mostly ambivalent toward the Emma/Mark canon arc; I like them both but I'm not sure they'd be good for each other in the long run. Really though, as I said, anything goes.
Silicon Valley
Jared, Erlich
I love the whole cast of this show - Richard is actually my favorite; I love his realistic anxiety, I love how much he struggles with doing the right thing but generally has his heart in the right place, and I love how the show ends up being surprisingly optimistic even though the guys go through so much crap.
Jared/Erlich is the weird tiny OTP of my heart, though. I just love how both of them are so concerned with Richard's well-being in their own ways, and I think their personalities balance each other out really well. I started shipping them because of the season 2 finale (the little smile Erlich gives Jared when he starts coding - it did things to my heart) and in s3 Erlich actually trusted Jared with his financial situation, which was oddly touching. For all that fandom jokes about them being the “mom and dad” of Pied Piper there’s not much out there for the pairing that I didn’t write myself. But if you don’t want to write shippy stuff anything where they’re interacting is honestly great.
I don’t have any NOTPs in this fandom, but I’m slightly burned out on Jared/Richard and prefer it when it’s one-sided from Jared.
I'm having a hard time thinking of specific prompts. Halloween must have happened sometime during season 2, but we never saw it onscreen, so it seems like there'd be opportunity to fill it in there - assuming the crew even had time to have a party or acknowledge it at all! I would actually enjoy seeing the cast react to ridiculous horror scenarios, like a zombie apocalypse, as long as it was played mostly for laughs and nobody actually gets their brains eaten. Also, the Winchester Mystery House is in San Jose; just tossing that idea out there, ha. An overnight stay as a team-building exercise?
Sunspring
H, H2, C
If you haven’t seen Sunspring/don’t know what it is, please check it out! It’s only nine minutes long total: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY7x2Ihqjmc And if you matched with me via Silicon Valley or The Final Girls, Thomas Middleditch is in it, bonus!
To summarize, it’s a weird sci fi short film written by an AI. To me, the most fascinating thing about it is the way it shows how humans try really hard to assign meaning even to things that objectively don’t have meaning. I’ve heard various interpretations about what’s “really” happening in the film, and of course the computer wasn’t actually “intending” anything. The filmmakers had to interpret its output in a filmable way, and then we as viewers try to interpret it as a coherent story.
So: What do YOU think is going on? I personally feel like H2 killed C and H is taking the fall for it, but I don’t know why I think that, exactly. Heck, maybe C isn’t even actually dead; you can read the text of the script and it’s not actually specified (in fact, it really doesn’t sound like he is.) There’s definitely a weird, dark, surreal tone to the film, especially the end, and I think it could be fun to explore and expand on. Where are they and what are they doing? What the heck does H mean when he says he “got on this rock with a child and then [he] left the other two”? Or maybe something about young people selling their blood for money, which is apparently a thing in this universe. Is that blood in the bag H is holding at the end? If so, whose blood is it?
General likes:
-slice of life
-character studies
-pining (requited, unrequited, I love it all)
-angst
-fluff
-porn (plot usually preferred, but PWP is not a problem either)
General dislikes:
-AUs/fusions
-graphic violence/gore (that doesn’t mean no violence at all, just don’t dwell on the details)
-deathfic (unless it's canon death)
-kidfic (unless there are canon kids - Playing House fic can certainly contain adorable baby-related shenanigans)
Normally I don't like horror or supernatural occurrences in settings that don't already have them, but this exchange is absolutely an exception. I still prefer if the main characters are alive and well by the end, and I still would prefer avoiding graphic depictions of violence, but other than that, ghosts and monsters and creepiness and general overall weirdness are very welcome.
I LOVE Halloween itself and will gladly read anything related to the holiday for any of these fandoms.
I like fairly vanilla sex scenes mostly -- light bondage is great, anything involving serious pain/injury or body fluids not typically associated with sex, not so much. (Though I love cumplay, for some reason.) I'm fine with super graphic PWPs, if that's where your inclinations take you, but feel free to fade to black or not write any sex at all if you prefer! In-character canon-compliant gen is also great. I'll list my ships in the specific fandoms, but that doesn't mean you should feel obligated to write shipfic.
I feel like browsing what I've written and bookmarked on ao3 is a pretty good indication of the kind of thing I like. But honestly, I'm REALLY not very picky. Optional details are ENTIRELY OPTIONAL - don't feel the need to use any of them if you don't want to. I'd rather have you enjoy yourself than stress over trying to write the perfect fill. These are all canons I love and just want more (or in a couple cases, any) fic for in general.
As for art: I don’t ask for art because I’m not an artist and really don’t know anything about art, so I don’t really know what to request or prompt art-wise. That said, if you’re interested in art as a treat, I would absolutely adore it.
On to the prompts! Yes, a couple of these are repeated from previous exchanges. I still want them, so I'm still requesting them.
The Final Girls
Duncan, Vicki, Gertie
I actually like everyone but these three are my faves, so they’re the ones I’m requesting. (I also feel like Max’s story arc was wrapped up pretty perfectly in the actual film.) I would love to see sequelfic - the events of the second half of the double-header, or what happens if/when they finally get home. Or exploration as to how exactly they ended up in the movie in the first place! I would vastly prefer nobody get actually for real killed off, but fakeout/impermanent deaths are fine (just, you know, not too graphic, please. I really appreciated this movie’s PG-13 rating.) I really love Duncan and Gertie’s relationship as kind of antagonistic stepsiblings who still love each other and would love to see that explored (especially since Gertie watched Duncan “die” already), and Vicki and Gertie have this awesome frenemy thing going on that I also love. I could totally ship them if you want to go that route.
Ghostbusters (2016)
Kevin, Garrett
Agh I know I KNOW this is such a great movie with Strong Female Heroes and here I am wanting to ship the two hot guys who never even meet onscreen I KNOW it’s terrible, okay, just terrible. But the heart wants what it wants and what mine wants is for Chris Hemsworth and Zach Woods to make out. How do they even meet? I don’t know! Maybe via a “my life was ruined by ghosts” support group Kevin doesn’t even think he needs to attend, but the Ghostbusters think might be good for him? I love how Kevin is so dumb but so sweet and earnest, and basically becomes the team’s lovable clumsy puppy by the end. He’s an idiot but he’s THEIR idiot and they just want him to be okay, dammit!
I’m pretty curious about what Garrett does post-Gertrude Aldridge incident. Does he keep his job, or get another one somewhere else - that turns out to be just as haunted, and he has to call the Ghostbusters for help? Honestly I have a lot of sympathy for him, since I don’t even think I would have reacted as well as he did when confronted with an actual bona fide malevolent spirit.
Incidentally, I’m kind of sad that Garrett and Patty never meet in the movie. I like the idea of them getting excited about history together.
A last-minute addendum: I mentioned on Imzy that I was going to request Ghostbusters, and someone asked if I was going to be requesting ghost sex. I hadn’t planned on it, but... the more I think about it, the more appealing either character getting dubconned by a ghost (of either gender) is. Or maybe there are shenanigans involving possession? (Like, Garrett is into Kevin, assumes Kevin’s way out of his league, but then a possessed Kevin comes onto him and he isn’t sure how to react...) Feel free to get weird with it, just try not to break anyone permanently.
Gravity Falls
Robbie
Three of the things I love in this world: hoodies, TJ Miller, and characters who act like assholes to cover up their immense insecurities. I just binged Gravity Falls recently and, needless to say, I REALLY LOVED ROBBIE. And there’s not a lot of fic about him. I mean, I totally understand why he’s not a very popular character, but I would love to see that remedied.
I have a lot of feelings about Robbie being part of the prophesied hero group from the end of Weirdmageddon - the heroes who ended up not actually really accomplishing anything, ultimately. Everyone else involved had had some opportunity to fight against occult forces at some point in earlier episodes, but not Robbie; he’d just kind of had weird things happen to him. The fact that he suddenly had the chance to do something heroic, and then it never actually happened, just made me really sad for him? So I’d love a fic where he does get a chance to be a hero. He can totally be a whiny jerk about it, I mean, he’s still Robbie = ) Gravity Falls is still a place where weird crap happens, and there are lots of supernatural forces and cryptids and mythological creatures the show never introduced - selkies, sirens, Bigfoot, vampires (well, apparently Mabel ran into some at some point offscreen), whatever, the show basically gives you carte blanche to write whatever weird creepy stuff you want, run wild! I also recently picked up Journal 3 and it's full of weird creatures that never made it into the show. If you have access to it, there might be some inspiration there.
I also thought the end of the Love God episode was pretty skeevy, tbh, and the fact that Robbie and Tambry didn’t seem particularly concerned for each other in the finale made me suspect they’d broken up. I will also admit flat out that I spent the whole show sort of half-hoping that Robbie and Wendy would get back together, but if you’d rather write them as just friends I’m totally cool with that too. I also have a weird desire for futurefic Robbie/Dipper? I guess I'm just a sucker for former-rivals-as-friends (or boyfriends), though if you go this route I'd rather Dipper be at least 18. A three-year age difference seems a lot less weird when the characters are 18 and 21 then when they're 13 and 16 = )
Playing House
any (nominated: Emma, Maggie, Zach, Bruce, Charlotte)
I really love the characters in this show - I think Emma and Maggie's friendship is realistic and wonderful, and I love how they both have selfish and mean moments but are at heart good people who've got each others' backs. I'd take any fic at all for this show and be thrilled; there's definitely a lot of opportunity for adorable fluff involving Charlotte. I really love the episode where Bruce and Zach babysit and would love more of that; I also love Maggie and Zach's relationship and how she feels protective of him. Something about their childhoods might be fun, or them in the aftermath of their parents' death, if you want to go a darker, sadder route. Or something on the crackier side, involving Bosephus or the raccoons who lived in the playhouse in the first episode (or both at once?).
I don't particularly ship anything in this series; I could probably be convinced of Emma/Maggie pretty easily but I love their friendship the way it is, and I think Bruce and Maggie's arc in season 2 has been pretty cute. I also have a weird desire for some Emma/Zach that goes somewhere awkward and embarrassing - a hookup they both immediately realize was a terrible idea and try to hide from Maggie? I'm mostly ambivalent toward the Emma/Mark canon arc; I like them both but I'm not sure they'd be good for each other in the long run. Really though, as I said, anything goes.
Silicon Valley
Jared, Erlich
I love the whole cast of this show - Richard is actually my favorite; I love his realistic anxiety, I love how much he struggles with doing the right thing but generally has his heart in the right place, and I love how the show ends up being surprisingly optimistic even though the guys go through so much crap.
Jared/Erlich is the weird tiny OTP of my heart, though. I just love how both of them are so concerned with Richard's well-being in their own ways, and I think their personalities balance each other out really well. I started shipping them because of the season 2 finale (the little smile Erlich gives Jared when he starts coding - it did things to my heart) and in s3 Erlich actually trusted Jared with his financial situation, which was oddly touching. For all that fandom jokes about them being the “mom and dad” of Pied Piper there’s not much out there for the pairing that I didn’t write myself. But if you don’t want to write shippy stuff anything where they’re interacting is honestly great.
I don’t have any NOTPs in this fandom, but I’m slightly burned out on Jared/Richard and prefer it when it’s one-sided from Jared.
I'm having a hard time thinking of specific prompts. Halloween must have happened sometime during season 2, but we never saw it onscreen, so it seems like there'd be opportunity to fill it in there - assuming the crew even had time to have a party or acknowledge it at all! I would actually enjoy seeing the cast react to ridiculous horror scenarios, like a zombie apocalypse, as long as it was played mostly for laughs and nobody actually gets their brains eaten. Also, the Winchester Mystery House is in San Jose; just tossing that idea out there, ha. An overnight stay as a team-building exercise?
Sunspring
H, H2, C
If you haven’t seen Sunspring/don’t know what it is, please check it out! It’s only nine minutes long total: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY7x2Ihqjmc And if you matched with me via Silicon Valley or The Final Girls, Thomas Middleditch is in it, bonus!
To summarize, it’s a weird sci fi short film written by an AI. To me, the most fascinating thing about it is the way it shows how humans try really hard to assign meaning even to things that objectively don’t have meaning. I’ve heard various interpretations about what’s “really” happening in the film, and of course the computer wasn’t actually “intending” anything. The filmmakers had to interpret its output in a filmable way, and then we as viewers try to interpret it as a coherent story.
So: What do YOU think is going on? I personally feel like H2 killed C and H is taking the fall for it, but I don’t know why I think that, exactly. Heck, maybe C isn’t even actually dead; you can read the text of the script and it’s not actually specified (in fact, it really doesn’t sound like he is.) There’s definitely a weird, dark, surreal tone to the film, especially the end, and I think it could be fun to explore and expand on. Where are they and what are they doing? What the heck does H mean when he says he “got on this rock with a child and then [he] left the other two”? Or maybe something about young people selling their blood for money, which is apparently a thing in this universe. Is that blood in the bag H is holding at the end? If so, whose blood is it?